Crisis-club Derby are hoping for a much needed cash windfall, with Kaide Gordon lined up to make his Liverpool debut.
The Rams are about to go into administration because of Covid related debts, with owner Mel Morris desperate to sell after making personal losses on his purchase that he puts in excess of £200m.
But as part of the deal which took teenage sensation Gordon to Anfield back in February, Derby are due some additional payments based on performance-related targets.
Liverpool paid £1.1m for the 16 year old, but that figure potentially rises to £3.4m with add-ons. And the first of those would be £100,000 on his first full appearance for the Reds.
Gordon had already played for Derby’s’ first team at the age of 16 years and two months when he was signed by Klopp in February for a fee of £1m, rising potentially to £3m.
Gordon has been pencilled in to appear at Norwich in the EFL Cup on Tuesday night, and there is a good chance he will start, with assistant boss Pep Lijnders describing the winger as a “diamond”.
Lijnders admitted to being blown away when he saw the exciting winger play in a specially arranged pre-season session with a fire in his belly that immediately marked him out as a potential star.
“About Kaide, I called Jurgen immediately and was like, ‘wow! We have a new player here,” Klopp’s assistant manager explained.
“Before pre-season we always make sure our biggest talents start a week earlier than we start. They start with the U23s so I went to the Under 23s training ground, watching.
“And I saw one player and he has fire in each moment that he touches the ball. He passes players like they are not there.”
He was left out of the Liverpool U23 squad which faced Leeds on Sunday, to allow him to make his first team debut in the cup game, where Jurgen Klopp intends to give several youngsters some experience.
The Reds boss has high hopes for the England U18 star, describing the forward as “a sensational young talent”.
After an impressive pre-season, he revealed he wanted to keep a first team squad place open for Gordon.
