Liverpool star and Chelsea target snubbed by Euro giant, as Slot breaks silence on move

Joe Gomez’s chances of securing a Liverpool exit have suffered a blow as a European giant is reportedly not interested in signing the out-of-favour defender – as Arne Slot finally weighs in on the England man’s situation.

The 27-year-old’s Liverpool future has been thrown into doubt after he was not included in the matchday squad for their 2-0 Premier League win over Ipswich Town last weekend.

Gomez has spent the vast majority of his career at the Reds after signing from Charlton Athletic in 2015 on a five-year deal for £3.5m.

The 6ft 2in player has racked up 224 appearances for the Merseyside outfit and 51 of those came last season – the most amount of games he had played for the club in a single campaign.

However, that was under former manager Jurgen Klopp – who stepped down from his role after nearly nine years at Liverpool in May.

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His successor, Slot, appears to not value the England international, whose contract runs until 2027, as highly after excluding him from their Premier League opener.

Gomez, who started 164 of his total appearances for the Reds, has since become a target for Chelsea, with TEAMtalk revealing the Blues are trying to sell centre-backs Benoit Badiashile and Trevoh Chalobah.

Gomez moved ruled out

If he does go, Liverpool reportedly value Gomez at £45m – which may put off many potential suitors, including Chelsea and Aston Villa.

Now, CaughtOffside claim Bayern Munich are not interested in recruiting the the former Addicks ace this summer.

Although reports elsewhere suggested the defender is willing to explore an Anfield exit, and that could lead to interest from Bayern, the report has poured cold water on such speculation.

Moreover, the Bundesliga team have Japan international Hiroki Ito to come back from injury, so they feel they have enough centre-back options at their disposal.

After seeing Sepp van den Berg join Brentford and Joel Matip leave at the end of his contract last season, Liverpool – who are yet to make a first-team signing this summer – may want to keep hold of Gomez as a back-up option.

And going by Slot’s comments, it is hard to say if Gomez will stay at the club or not.

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Slot makes Gomez admission

When asked if Gomez would stay at Liverpool beyond the transfer deadline, Slot told reporters on Friday: “At this moment, I’m expecting everyone to be here, but you are maybe longer in football than I am [and know] that everything can change.”

Gomez was part of the England squad that made it to the Euro 2024 final in July and, therefore, returned to the Liverpool squad later than most.

Former Feyenoord boss Slot also revealed that Gomez was not at 100 per cent upon his return, so the Reds have been managing his schedule. Other than that, he did not give too much away on the defender – but praised him for his professionalism.

He added: “Yeah [his head has been in the right place] for three weeks. He’s worked really hard since he came back. He didn’t play a lot at the Euros and when he came back in the first sessions he couldn’t train for the whole session, so we had to manage his load a bit.

“That was also a reason why he wasn’t in the team [at Ipswich]. This week he had a good week in terms of [training] load, how much he could do with the team.

“He’s one of the players that I see new things from and learn things from what I see from him, also combined with other players. It’s been a good week for him and us until now.”