JURGEN Klopp, the Liverpool manager, has revealed that Rangers can have Ryan Kent, the Anfield winger who spent last season on loan at Ibrox, but only if they sign him permanently.
Steven Gerrard has admitted he is keen to take the 22-year-old, who was named PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year after a string of outstanding performances in the 2018/19 campaign, back to Scotland.
However, Klopp, whose Champions League winners were defeated 3-0 by Napoli in a pre-season friendly in front of a crowd of 65,442 in the capital yesterday evening, won’t allow the £8 million-rated player to leave on loan again.
The German feels the former England under-20 player, who missed the Napoli match due to a virus, can only progress if he signs for another club after spending temporary stints at Coventry City, Barnsley, Freiburg in Germany, Bristol City and Rangers in the past four years.
READ MORE: Liverpool 0 Napoli 3: Champions League winners slump to heavy defeat at Murrayfield
The news is a blow to Gerrard as the asking price for Kent, who has featured extensively for the English giants during pre-season against Bradford City, Borussia Dortmund, Sporting Lisbon and Sevilla, is likely to be too rich for Rangers.
Klopp admitted that working under Liverpool legend Gerrard at Ibrox had been hugely beneficial to Kent, who has publicly stated that he would like to move to Rangers, as a player.
“It helped a lot,” he said. “He came back and he was a completely different player. When he left, it was a very important year and it helped. Good manager, really good club and good competition so for him it was exactly the right thing at the right moment.”
Asked if he would be prepared to allow Kent to go back to Rangers, Klopp said: “If Rangers can buy him. His time is over I think for giving him on loan. At an age like this, players need to find a place where they can settle. That’s probably the moment, but we will see. A loan is not on.”
Meanwhile, Klopp, whose Liverpool team defeated Spurs in Madrid in at the start of last month to win the Champions League, has admitted that he would like to see the Edinburgh venue, which is the home of Scottish rugby, host a major European football final in future.
The crowd was the biggest to watch a football match in Scotland since the Scottish Cup final between Celtic and Rangers at Hampden back in 1989.
READ MORE: Rangers 1-0 Derby County: Steven Gerrard's side round off pre-season schedule with Ibrox victory
“Could we play a Champions League final here?” said Klopp. “One hundred per cent. If Liverpool were involved, it would be a nice game. It felt like a home game actually.
“Outside, I didn’t see too much because so many people were around, but inside it looked like ‘no problem’. It’s a stadium that is ready for big events - 100 per cent. It’s not so far away from a couple of other stadia that we have used in the last years.”
Klopp was missing Alisson, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri once again yesterday and stressed he was unconcerned about the performance of his Liverpool team against Napoli. “I never had a situation like this without six players making a complete pre-season, it’s just strange,” he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel