Liverpool Reject £11M Napoli Offer for Alberto Moreno

Liverpool, on the verge of making their first big signing of the summer, may not be far off their first big sale after they received the first formal bid for surplus left back Alberto Moreno. The £11M bid from Napoli was rejected, but they aren’t the only suitor and Liverpool are reportedly confident of getting a deal done.

Whether that deal is with Napoli or another club remains to be seen, but the goal, as reported by The Telegraph’s Chris Bascombe and others today, is £15M. If they can manage to get that much, it will mean the club have turned a small profit on a player they brought in from Sevilla for £12M three summers ago.

Moreno arrived at Anfield as part of a major overhaul, with Luis Suarez departing following the club’s title challenge and the club making seven £10M-plus signings—along with Moreno, Emre Can, Divock Origi, Mario Balotelli, Lazar Markovic, Dejan Lovren, and Adam Lallana all arrived for significant fees.

In retrospect it appears an exceptionally poor reinvestment on the Suarez funds, a summer that marked manager Brendan Rodgers’ first step towards Liverpool failure. As for Moreno, while going from La Liga to England might have seemed a step up at the time, in retrospect 2014 was a rather poor summer for him, too.

After playing more than 90 games in all competitions in his first two seasons at Liverpool, the 24-year-old Spaniard fell down the pecking order and made just 16 last season, with almost all of them coming off the bench. He’s still young, and he clearly has talent, but there were too many defensive question marks.

In addition to Napoli, both Milan clubs are reportedly interested in signing him. Former club Sevilla, though, have signalled that at the price Liverpool are asking they aren’t interested in signing the player despite that a return to his boyhood club would be Moreno’s first choice.