Marc Guehi reveals just how close he came to signing for Liverpool before deadline day collapse

Marc Guehi has spoken out about just how he close he was to signing for Liverpool in 2025 before the proposed transfer collapsed in dramatic circumstances.

It’s now been almost five months since the Reds had agreed a £35m deal to sign the England defender from Crystal Palace, only for the Selhurst Park club to pull the plug in the final hours of deadline day as they hadn’t time to sign a replacement.

That proved to be a fateful intervention as Manchester City duly swooped for the 25-year-old earlier this month, snapping him up for a mere £20m as Anfield chiefs decided against going back in for him amid a belief that he no longer represented a market opportunity.

Speaking with the Daily Mail , Guehi has now addressed the failed Liverpool transfer publicly, revealing that he was on the verge of completing his medical and had even been in an MRI scanner before the Eagles put a stop to the deal going through.

The England centre-back said of his doomed move to Anfield: “It was very close. Very close. The medical was pretty much done and then it got pulled at the last minute.”

The report also mentioned that his international teammates John Stones and Phil Foden had instigated a charm offensive to try and lure him to Man City.

(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

We can’t keep regretting what might’ve been with Guehi, but the defender’s declaration as to how close he’d been to becoming a Liverpool player reopens the wounds for Reds supporters, especially given what’s happened at Anfield since the end of last summer.

Just three weeks after that transfer collapsed, Giovanni Leoni suffered a devastating ACL injury to leave Arne Slot with only three senior centre-backs, one of whom (Joe Gomez) has now been sidelined for the second time this season after going off in the defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday.

With Ibrahima Konate on compassionate leave after his father died last week, it meant that rarely-used midfielder Wataru Endo was pressed into action as an emergency centre-back at the Vitality Stadium with the Reds having just gone 2-0 down.

While Liverpool lurched into yet another crisis at the weekend, Guehi was enjoying a strong debut for Man City, helping them to a clean sheet in a comfortable victory at home to Wolves.

The sense of frustration among supporters as to how the 25-year-old’s move to Anfield collapsed will linger for some time, but sporting director Richard Hughes can’t afford to dwell on the past. The only way to put this right is to recruit a readymade first-team centre-back for Slot before the club’s problems intensify even further.