A forgotten Liverpool defender has confirmed his desire to leave the Reds permanently this summer and has blasted the club for 'hindering' his future career.
Twenty-two-year-old Sepp van den Berg has been on the books at Anfield for five years since joining from PEC Zwolle as a teenager in 2019, but he has only made four appearances for the senior side.
All of those matches came in cup competitions during the 2019-20 campaign, and he never made a Premier League appearance under Jurgen Klopp, only making the bench four times in 2022.
Van den Berg has just completed his third loan spell away from Liverpool, who shipped him out to Preston North End and FC Schalke 04 before offloading him to Mainz 05, where he became a Bundesliga regular.
After scoring three goals in 35 games for Mainz, helping Die Nullfunfer stave off relegation to the second tier, Van den Berg is set to return to Anfield, where his contract runs for another two seasons.
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Van den Berg slams Liverpool and confirms desire to leave
Despite claims that Mainz could sign Van den Berg permanently for around £5m, Liverpool supposedly want as much as £20m for the 22-year-old, also on the radar of Brentford and Southampton ahead of the summer window.
The club's stance has not gone down well at all with the defender, who spoke to De Telegraaf about his situation and hit out at Liverpool for ostensibly pricing him out of a move elsewhere.
"I knew that I couldn't get from PEC Zwolle [straight] to Liverpool's first team, I could have been at Liverpool for one or two more years, but I wanted to play with all my might," Van den Berg said, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.
"I demanded to be [loaned] out. Every time, because I felt that I was getting better and better. I also made great strides physically. Just the whole [first] season. On the one hand, that was great.
"Yes, how does that work, you're 17, 18 years old, you're central to the defence in training against the starting XI, you have to build up and then Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mo Salah come running towards you. It was tough, but I enjoyed it. But in all honesty, I wasn't looked after anymore.
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"I also felt 'ready' [in 2021]. I had a good conversation with the management. He said he had received good reports. I understood that I wasn't going to play Van Dijk, Matip or Konate out [the team]. But I thought I could be right behind it. When I didn't get a chance again, I said: 'Figure it out, I want to leave.'
"You (Liverpool) didn't exude confidence in me all this time, but you do want to hinder my future. I want to keep playing every week and develop myself further. In Germany, I enjoy Dortmund away with 70,000 people, Bayern Munich away against Harry Kane, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Leverkusen, against clubs like that I am challenged every week."
Could Van den Berg reignite his Liverpool career?
One of Arne Slot's first tasks as Liverpool manager will be to plug some defensive gaps, as Joel Matip will officially become a free agent later this month, while Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams have no futures at the club either.
Van den Berg's exceptional work at Mainz and his Dutch connection with Slot may have raised the possibility of the 22-year-old reigniting his Anfield career, thus allowing Liverpool to keep their transfer funds spare for midfield or attacking additions.
However, there is surely no coming back from his explosive interview, and a permanent switch either back to Germany or to his native Netherlands are the two most likely outcomes to the transfer saga.
Ben Knapton
