Florian Wirtz has landed in England for his Liverpool medical ahead of a British record £116m move to the club.
Liverpool came to a verbal agreement with Bayer Levekusen last week after seeing three bids turned down, with a fourth and final offer worth an initial £100m plus add-ons being accepted.
He landed at Manchester Airport on Thursday afternoon, from where he will travel to Merseyside to finalise a deal, with a medical penned in for Friday.
Wirtz also attracted attention from Bayern Munich but told the German champions he wanted to go to Liverpool and agreed personal terms with the club two weeks ago.
The new English champions are believed to have impressed him with their plan while Manchester City, who also showed an interest, switched their focus to Tijjani Reijnders of AC Milan and Lyon’s Rayan Cherki.
Wirtz smashes Liverpool’s transfer record as well as edging the wider British record, which is currently held by Moises Caicedo’s £115m switch to Chelsea. The Reds have previously paid £75m for Virgil van Dijk and £64m, rising to £85m, for Darwin Nunez.
Wirtz, who found the net for Germany against Portugal in the Nations League last week, has scored 34 goals in the last two seasons for Leverkusen, helping them win a first league title in 2023/24 across an unbeaten domestic season, when he was named the Bundesliga Player of the Year.
Having always been touted as one of Germany’s next big things, his supersonic rise to prominence over the past couple seasons comes after a suffering a detrimental ACL injury in 2022, which saw him out of action for 266 days.
Liverpool have already signed his Leverkusen teammate Jeremie Frimpong for £29m as they begin life after Trent Alexander-Arnold.
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They are also in talks with Bournemouth, who want £45m for left-back Milos Kerkez, and could commit almost £200m to new signings within a few weeks.
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