Roma Warn Off Alisson Suitors Liverpool and Real Madrid

If Liverpool want Alisson they will have to pay over the odds for him—though increasingly it looks like they may not need him.

Two months ago, Liverpool fans were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the club’s next number one, Roma goalkeeper Alisson Becker. It soon became clear, though, that he wasn’t arriving in January and that Liverpool were going to give Loris Karius the remainder of the season to prove his worth.

Two months later and Karius appears well on his way to doing just that—it’s not certain yet, perhaps, but if he continues to play as he has so far it seems unlikely a new number one would be brought in. And now, Alisson’s current club are publicly talking about his future being at Roma.

“We are not thinking about selling our best players,” Roma chairman Umberto Gandini told Radio Rai this week, insisting that the Serie A club—who currently sit in third and look likely to be in the Champions League next season—will head into the summer looking to buy and not to sell.

“Right now we are living a very important phase of our season,” Gandini continued. “This is a club that has always brought in many players to improve. The transfer window is dynamic, there are big teams that change their identity to improve—and not always for economical reasons.”

Last summer, Roma made transfer decisions based on those economical reasons—namely by selling Mohamed Salah to Liverpool for £35M plus add-ons to keep in line with Financial Fair Play regulations. This summer, the Italian club don’t face similar issues and appear not to need to sell.

That will mean that any club that do want to sign a player like Alisson will likely have to pay over the odds to get him, unlike last summer when Liverpool got Salah for a fee that looked a bargain at the time and an absolute steal now. With how Karius is playing, though, that may not matter.

At least not to Liverpool, who at the moment look to make Gandini and Roma happy by abandoning any interest they might have had in Alisson—though with rumours in Spain of interest from Real Madrid, there might end up being a club willing to pay over the odds for him.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com