"My agent called..." - Croatia international opens up on failed Liverpool transfer

Croatia international Duje Caleta-Car has revealed just how close he came to joining Liverpool in 2021.

The Reds were strongly linked with a move for the central defender in the January during the 2021-22 campaign.

That season, Jurgen Klopp's side were decimated by defensive injuries, with the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez sidelined at the same time.

At one point during the campaign, Klopp was forced to play midfield duo Jordan Henderson and Fabinho as a makeshift central defensive pairing, such was the scale of Liverpool's injury crisis.

The Reds were linked with a number of centre-backs in the January window including Caleta-Car, who was playing for Marseille at the time.

Why didn't he join?

According to the Liverpool Echo, Caleta-Car came extremely close to joining Liverpool that January.

He reportedly travelled to Marseille's Provence Airport to fly to England to complete the transfer but never boarded the plane.

Reports in France claim that the Ligue 1 side were concerned they would not have the time to replace Caleta-Car before the end of the window, and subsequently pulled out of talks to sell him.

Liverpool instead signed Ben Davies from Preston North End and Ozan Kabak from Schalke, with both players no longer at the club.

Caleta-Car, meanwhile, has since got his move to the Premier League, having joined Southampton in an £8.5m transfer in the summer.

Caleta-Car is now at Southampton (Image: Alamy)

"It happened really fast"

Caleta-Car has now opened up on his failed bid to join Liverpool, who face Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.

"It happened really fast," the 26-year-old told HampshireLive.

"You know, they get a lot of injured players - central defenders - so my agent called me and said to me Liverpool is there.

“They are something different and I wanted to join them because Liverpool is one of the biggest clubs in the world.

"But it didn’t happen. There was something between Marseille and Liverpool but I don’t want to go into what happened.

“But now I’m here [at Southampton] and really enjoying it here in England. We play against Liverpool now so it’ll be a good test."

Topics: Liverpool, Southampton, Premier League, Football, Transfers

Rory O'Callaghan

Rory O'Callaghan is Editorial Lead at SPORTbible. He has previously worked for Sky Sports News, MailOnline and Reach covering football, cricket, boxing and MMA. Tested daily as a Liverpool fan in a Manchester office.

@rory_ocallaghan