A shocking incident in the Bundesliga last night may have squandered any opportunity of one of our transfer targets moving to Liverpool this summer.
Our defensive options have been questioned following recent injuries to both Joe Gomez and Joel Matip, with Virgil van Dijk our only established centre-back before our game against Chelsea last week.
Because of this, we have been linked with a host of defenders. One of which was Sevilla’s Diego Carlos and the other was Schalke’s 20-year-old Turkish defender Ozan Kabak, according to The Athletic’s James Pearce.
But for the Ankara-born youngster, his hopes of moving to Anfield have gone up in smoke after a disgusting act that took place during his side’s 3-1 defeat to Werder Bremen.
Kabak was sent off with six minutes to play after picking up his second booking of the match, he spat at Bremen’s Ludwig Augustinsson after putting in a strong challenge on him.
Despite apologising for his actions on Twitter and claiming that it was accidental, photos and videos of his repulsive actions suggest otherwise.
Das ist das Allerletzte, einen anderen Spieler anzuspucken. Zehn Spiele Sperre wegen grober Unsportlichkeit. Mindestens. #Anspucken #Kabak #S04SVW #FCSchalke #S04 pic.twitter.com/kEgB2tExVA
— Bananenflanke (@dirk_adam) September 26, 2020
Galatasaray terbiyesi ile yeti?mi? bir oyuncu olan Ozan Kabak’?n, pandemi döneminde rakibine tükürmesi. pic.twitter.com/McmmfrNgC2
— Siyah Çorapl?lar (@SiyahCorapIilar) September 26, 2020
Here is what Kabak said on Twitter after the match.
I wish to sincerely apologize to Ludwig https://t.co/dlxr7akHrw was not my intention, it was an accident.I did not aim at him, the TV angle gives a deceptive view of the incident.I never did that before and won’t do it IN THE FUTURE, as it’s unsporting. This was very unlucky.
— Ozan KABAK (@ozankabak4) September 26, 2020
L4L’s view…
If spitting at your opponent isn’t bad enough, the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic makes his action ten times worse.
Any chance of a move to Anfield now will have been destroyed, and rightly so. We have had too many troublesome figures playing for us over the years and we cannot afford to have any more in a squad that is so strong at this time.
I was all for Kabak moving to Liverpool. A young prospect coming through as a respectable club like Schalke, similar to the path that Joel Matip took before his free transfer in 2016.
But this is totally unacceptable, and hopefully should any end to any talk of him moving to Merseyside in the future.