Florian Wirtz Liverpool transfer details as fourth bid made and debut given
Florian Wirtz played 'his last match as a Bayer Leverkusen player' on Sunday according to reports in his homeland, and he is soon expected to complete his move to Liverpool
Florian Wirtz continues to close in on his record move to Liverpool - but in Germany they are considering the transfer to be as good as done.
Wirtz played the full 90 minutes in Stuttgart as Germany lost the UEFA Nations League third-place playoff 2-0 to France on Sunday, with German publication Bild claiming that both the Reds and Bayer Leverkusen 'must have breathed a sigh of relief' that the 22-year-old came through the match unscathed.
That is because Leverkusen are now counting on the deal to be done almost as much as Liverpool are, with the Bundesliga club now waiting on the final offer from the Reds following intense but amicable negotiations.
Liverpool will offer around £118million for Wirtz, making him the most expensive player ever signed by a British club. The deal will comprise of a fixed fee upfront said to be over £100m, with the rest in a mixture of bonus payments.
The offer still falls sort of the £126m that Bayer had been seeking for the outstanding player in the Bundesliga for the last two seasons, but an agreement between the clubs is widely expected to be reached.
Bild add that Wirtz will sign a five-year contract at Anfield to tie him to the club until 2030, and following the completion of the formalities of the deal he will then head off on holiday as a Liverpool player.
The German publication then go even further and claim that Wirtz will report for pre-season training with Liverpool on July 7, before making his debut for the Reds in the pre-season friendly against Preston North End at Deepdale on July 13.
However that isn't set in stone, and it may well be that Reds boss Arne Slot opts to bring his players back for the new season gradually depending on how much international football they have played over the summer.
Wirtz played the full 180 minutes of Germany's Nations League matches against Portugal and France, and so he is likely to be slowly introduced to his new club by the Dutchman.
After Preston, Liverpool's only other friendly matches currently scheduled are against AC Milan on July 26 and Yokohama F Marinos on July 30, both on the club's pre-season tour of Japan.
Wirtz is expected to be on the tour, and Liverpool could end up scheduling a European pre-season training camp before the Japan trip as in previous summers.
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