Liverpool now appear to have a clearer picture of Ronald Ara\u00fajo\u2019s loan arrangement, with reports indicating that an option to buy him does exist at the end of the spell from Barcelona. That detail had not previously been made public.<\/p>\n
The defender has already made four league appearances and has drawn attention for his Player-of-the-Match showing in the 2-1 Champions League victory over Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, a match in which he also produced a back-heel assist. Under Andoni Iraola, he has mainly played at right back, a role that had earlier been viewed as a weak spot for the side.<\/p>\n
Fabrizio Romano addressed the situation on his YouTube channel, saying he \u201cmisspoke\u201d on a recent, unspecified podcast when stating there was no buy option in the agreement. He told viewers that Liverpool do, in fact, hold the chance to make the move permanent.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of you asking me about his situation in terms of future, in terms of contract. I wanted to clarify something. I was mentioning on a podcast that he didn\u2019t have a buy option clause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not the case. It was just my mistake. I told you in the summer and I can confirm that my information I broke in August. I think it was there is a buy option clause for Liverpool and it\u2019s worth \u20ac55 million ($63 million).\u201d<\/p>\n
Romano also said Liverpool are \u201cdelighted\u201d with the start Ara\u00fajo has made, while stressing it is \u201ctoo early\u201d to say whether both sides would want to complete a permanent deal.<\/p>\n
The Daily Mail has since reported that Ara\u00fajo is \u201cloving life\u201d in England and could stay on Merseyside beyond his initial season-long stay. It also says the three-time La Liga winner is working hard on his English.<\/p>\n
After the Atl\u00e9tico Madrid win, Ara\u00fajo said: \u201cI\u2019m really happy to be here, because Liverpool are a great club, and I\u2019m really looking forward to continuing to give my all so I can keep contributing to the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love playing in this stadium; I think it\u2019s a very special and lovely place, and when we\u2019re also able to show off all our hard work here with a good result, it makes us feel very satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n
If his form holds, pressure from supporters to complete the deal is likely to grow. His age may complicate matters, though, as he will be 28 by the end of the season and older than most players Liverpool\u2019s FSG owners usually back with major spending. A permanent move would also be, by some distance, the most expensive signing in his age bracket in club history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool\u2019s option on Ronald Ara\u00fajo has been clarified, with Romano correcting his earlier comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,2033],"tags":[1047,59,182],"class_list":["post-19413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-liverpool-transfer-news","tag-champions-league","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}