Liverpool could soon bid farewell to a player who came to the club in 2018 but has never played a first-team game for the Reds.
It’s now been almost six-and-a-half years since Anderson Arroyo joined LFC, but having never been granted a work permit in the UK, he’s undergone a series of loan moves in the meantime. The most recent of those was to Spanish second tier outfit Burgos, who now look set to sign him on a permanent basis.
Diario de Burgos reported that the Segunda Division club have agreed personal terms with the 24-year-old on a three-year deal, and while there are still some ‘small issues’ to be resolved, those are expected to be a formality.
The transfer is being driven by Burgos’ sporting director Michu, a throwback Premier League cult hero from his time at Swansea City in the 2010s.
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Arroyo’s time on Liverpool’s books is similar to that of Taiwo Awoniyi, who was technically a Reds player for six years but never once played for us, again due to the inability to obtain a work permit in the UK.
The Nigerian striker came back to haunt us in October 2022 when scoring the only goal in Nottingham Forest’s win over LFC in a Premier League clash at the City Ground, a fate that we’ll hopefully avoid if the Colombian defender ever plays against us in the future.
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The 24-year-old’s experience of top-flight football is limited to two appearances in Czechia’s Fortuna Liga with Mlada Boleslav in 2020 (Transfermarkt), although Burgos finished just five points off the LaLiga2 play-offs this year, so it’s plausible that he could play in the Spanish top tier in the foreseeable future.
At his age, Arroyo will probably just be glad to finally have a permanent home where he’ll enjoy regular game-time, and his loan spell with Los Burgaleses last term means that he’ll already be comfortable in his surroundings.
It’s a shame that he never got the opportunity to prove his worth at Liverpool, with bureaucratic red tape unfortunately seeing to that, but hopefully his proposed transfer will work out for the best and he can go on to enjoy a prosperous career at a high level.
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