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Roma president: Selling Alisson Becker to Liverpool "a no-brainer"

Roma chief: Selling Alisson
© Reuters
James Palotta insists that Roma were right to sell Alisson Becker to Liverpool and is confident that Robin Olsen will be an adequate replacement.

Roma president James Palotta has insisted that selling Alisson Becker "was a no-brainer" due to the size of Liverpool's offer.

The Reds landed their top goalkeeping target last week, making him the most expensive shot-stopper in the world at £67m in the process.

For the second summer running the Giallorossi have sold arguably their prized asset to Liverpool, having also offloaded Mohamed Salah 12 months ago, but Palotta is adamant that there can be no regrets with this latest sale after bringing in Robin Olsen from Copenhagen as a direct replacement.

"In Alisson's case, come on, let's be serious," he told SiriusXM FC. "He's great, I had a conversation the day he was leaving, I wished him great luck and a lot of shutouts, except to give up five or six goals if we play them again. He said he can't do that, but we can still talk to him about that. You know, €70m is a lot.

"I think we've brought in a really, really good goalie in Olsen - I think he's very underrated. [Director of football] Monchi actually was a goalie, so you'd think at the very least he has an idea of who has some talent in that position!

"We've identified another goalie who we think is going to be very, very good for us in that position, but that money also gives us the ability to look at a couple of other positions that we could bring in. So we're doing that right now, Monchi, myself and [Franco] Baldini spoke for an hour plus the other night about a couple of players in a few different positions - I don't want to say the positions.

"If you can pick up three really good players with the money for selling one really good goalie, to the football guys that matter at my place it was a no-brainer."

Alisson was also reportedly on the radar of Real Madrid and Chelsea following a year that saw him shine at the Stadio Olimpico and impress for Brazil at the World Cup finals.

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