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Liverpool transfer news: Brendan Rodgers to sell Oussama Assaidi to Middle East side

Winger has been recalled from loan spell at Stoke City and is expected to join Al-Ahli for £4.75million

Brendan Rodgers is set to offload winger Oussama Assaidi to Middle East club Al-Ahli for £4.75million.

Rodgers has scrapped Assaidi’s loan at Stoke City to sanction a permanent move away from Anfield for the Morocco international.

Assaidi joined Stoke on the final day of the summer transfer window but has had limited opportunities under Mark Hughes and his season-long loan has been terminated prematurely.

And the 26-year-old’s time in the Premier League is on the verge of ending after he flew out to Dubai to hold talks with Al-Ahli.

Hughes could now pursue a new winger in this transfer window, with Tottenham Hotspur's Aaron Lennon likely to be on the radar.

Lennon, 27, was targeted by Stoke in the summer and Hughes is poised to reignite his interest.

Norwich City’s Nathan Redmond was the subject of two bids from Stoke but it is thought highly unlikely the Championship club will agree to his sale this summer.

James Pearce - Liverpool Echo, says deal should be concluded within 48hrs

James Pearce - #LFC are close to selling Oussama Assaidi to Al-Ahli for £4.7m. The deal is expected to go through in the next 48 hours.

It is official he is gone !!

Liverpool Football Club can confirm Oussama Assaidi has left on a permanent transfer to join Al Ahli Club.

The Moroccan winger ended a loan spell with Stoke City early in order to complete the switch to Dubai.

Assaidi moved to Anfield from Heerenveen in the summer of 2012 and made 12 appearances for the Reds.

The 26-year-old originally joined Stoke on a season-long loan deal in September 2013 and returned to the Britannia Stadium at the start of the current campaign before signing for Al Ahli.

Strange signing...never understood why be bought him if we weren't prepared to play him.

At least we made a profit, but he ended up being another El Zhar.

He never really got an opportunity to show what he could do, wouldn't surprise me if he was another committee signing that Brendan wasn't keen on.

Didn't we pay like, 2 or 2.5 for him? I'm actually shocked we've got almost £5 million for him. Good bit of business there.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Jan 13th, '15, 15:32 wrote:He never really got an opportunity to show what he could do, wouldn't surprise me if he was another committee signing that Brendan wasn't keen on.

But BR is very much part of the 5 man Committee and is consensus based. Everyone has equal billing, and BR wouldn't have anyone forced on him. It is BR that wanted to spend big and made several promises to the Owners which he is unable to keep. If he had stated that he'd give the Academy players a good go of it, he wouldn't have needed to buy so many players in the first place. Everyone would have been happy cause there would be money available to spend right now.

Committee Members are:
Ian Ayre,
Michael Edwards (Director of Performance),
Dave Fallows (Head of Recruitment),
Barry Hunter (Chief Scout),
BR (LFC Coach).

Anyway, if we did get as much money for him as is being reported, then great. I'm sure LFC paid approx 2mil for him?

But that's the point mate, Rodgers didn't have the power of veto, in fact no one did, by all accounts it was that computer program that was really calling the shots.
According to James Pearce etc quite a few players arrived against Brendan's wishes.
But before you start jumping up and down accusing me of trying to absolve Brendan of any blame I actually think the committee's transfer targets were a lot better than the players Brendan reportedly wanted. By the sounds of it Brendan wanted to do his usual thing of signing players he's worked with before.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Jan 13th, '15, 17:57 wrote:But that's the point mate, Rodgers didn't have the power of veto, in fact no one did, by all accounts it was that computer program that was really calling the shots.
According to James Pearce etc quite a few players arrived against Brendan's wishes.
But before you start jumping up and down accusing me of trying to absolve Brendan of any blame I actually think the committee's transfer targets were a lot better than the players Brendan reportedly wanted. By the sounds of it Brendan wanted to do his usual thing of signing players he's worked with before.

Mate, i'm not saying you are absolving or implying anything else against BR. What i'm getting at is the fact that this whole Committee thing should not have been setup in the first place. Surely there was a better way? It's a mess, and a lot of it (not all) is down to BR for pushing and wanting to spend all of that money.

Anyway, good luck to the player, hope he does well.

Kash_Mountain » Tue Jan 13, 2015 5:15 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Jan 13th, '15, 17:57 wrote:But that's the point mate, Rodgers didn't have the power of veto, in fact no one did, by all accounts it was that computer program that was really calling the shots.
According to James Pearce etc quite a few players arrived against Brendan's wishes.
But before you start jumping up and down accusing me of trying to absolve Brendan of any blame I actually think the committee's transfer targets were a lot better than the players Brendan reportedly wanted. By the sounds of it Brendan wanted to do his usual thing of signing players he's worked with before.

Mate, i'm not saying you are absolving or implying anything else against BR. What i'm getting at is the fact that this whole Committee thing should not have been setup in the first place. Surely there was a better way? It's a mess, and a lot of it (not all) is down to BR for pushing and wanting to spend all of that money.

Anyway, good luck to the player, hope he does well.

I think that's just the way footy is going mate, because of the sums of money involved in transfers these days owners want something a bit more substantial to go on than essentially one mans hunch. Wether they'll find the answer in statistics and computer program's though is very much open to debate.