Liverpool Transfer Bombshell for Champions League Right Back Dropped by Player’s Father

Injuries to Jeremie Frimpong and Conor Bradley have exposed fullback issues for Liverpool this season.

Whether Arne Slot will give the thumbs up for this move remains to be seen. | Ed Sykes/Sportsphoto/Allstar/Getty Images

The father of Galatasaray right back Roland Sallai has claimed that contact with Liverpool has already been made and he “wouldn’t be surprised” to see his son become the third Hungarian to run out at Anfield.

“Roli feels good here, he loves the club, he doesn’t want to leave at any cost, but I think he still has one big step left in his career, a really big club,” Tibor Sallai told Blikk. “From here, he can only sign for a team that is truly one of the top teams in the world. Liverpool could be such a destination, and I admit, I wouldn’t be surprised if this club change happened now.”

Sallai joined Galatasaray in 2024 after establishing himself as a competent right winger for Freiburg and the Hungary national team. Initially signed for an attacking role, the No. 7 has since been reworked into a right back—a position which has been a major problem for Liverpool this season.

“I know that contact has already been made through a management office,” Sallai Sr claimed.

“I don’t want to and I don’t want to shout anything, but my son will really have a good chance in the summer, if there is an offer that is also beneficial for Galatasaray, to change country and level. It wouldn’t be just any moment if Liverpool ran out onto the Anfield Road turf with three Hungarians in the starting team.”

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Would Roland Sallai Be a Good Fit at Liverpool?

Roland Sallai has been at Galatasaray for more than 18 months. | Gerrit van Keulen/Soccrates/Getty Images

Sallai is a character constantly shunted out of the spotlight. It’s telling that it was his father, a former domestic champion during his own playing career, delivering the transfer declarations rather than the unassuming player himself. Sallai came through at Puskás Akademia being coached by his father and brought up on stories of his uncle Sandor playing in two World Cups for Hungary in the 1980s.

In this Galatasaray team spearheaded by Victor Osimhen and laced with eye-catching former Premier League talents such as Ilkay Gündogan, Leroy Sané and Lucas Torreira, Sallai’s industrious efforts down the right can go unnoticed.

As the legendary former Gala coach Fatih Terim recently said of the fullback, Sallai “always has a surprise for the opponent.”

By this point, it shouldn’t be a shock anymore. Availability and versatility as much as any technical quality are Sallai’s chief assets. The former winger has natural attacking instincts but is a dutiful worker off the ball—wherever he is played.

During one hard-fought win away to Sivasspor during his first season in Türkiye, Sallai was deployed in four different positions during the same match. Across his 18 months in Istanbul, he has been forced to miss just three games through injury. Sacha Boey, who is on loan from Bayern Munich after making a €30 million (£26.2 million, $35.3 million) move to Bavaria, cannot get back in the team.

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Is Right Back a Position Liverpool Should Be Targeting?

Jeremie Frimpong arrived last summer. | Liverpool FC/Getty Images

Liverpool have been undoubtedly stretched at right back this season. Conor Bradley’s season-ending injury in January left Jeremie Frimpong as the only natural option for this role in Arne Slot’s squad.

Joe Gomez cannot be physically trusted to fill in and Slot has made it abundantly clear that Calvin Ramsay has no future in the first team, forcing the Dutch boss to turn to the likes of Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones to plug that yawning gap on far too many occasions this season.

Most clubs operate under the premise of having two senior internationals to cover each position, but when that pairing are as injury prone as Frimpong and Bradley, a third is perhaps required. Both of Liverpool's existing fullbacks would be expected to regularly start, so anyone the Reds bring in this summer would have to settle for a supporting role.

A talented teenager in the form of Givairo Read, who has been linked with Arsenal and Manchester City in the past, could fit the bill. However, given Sallai’s track record of shunning the spotlight in favour of the collective good, he may not be so opposed to the role himself.

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