Liverpool have met a \u00a332.5m release clause for Aston Villa’s Belgium striker Christian Benteke, triggering a potential transfer.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old scored 12 goals in 12 games in the 2014-15 season to help keep Villa in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
The Reds have bid for the player – and met the asking price – after receiving funds from the \u00a349m sale of Raheem Sterling to Manchester City.<\/p>\n
Benteke still has two years left on his contract at Villa.<\/p>\n
England striker Daniel Sturridge made only 18 appearances for Liverpool last season because of a succession of injuries and is out until September with a hip problem.<\/p>\n
Reds manager Brendan Rodgers is believed to want cover as he seeks to re-establish his team in the Champions League, having finished sixth in the league last season.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Ian Ayre is with Rodgers and his squad for the second leg of their pre-season tour in Brisbane, Australia, but is handling negotiations with Villa over the details of the deal.<\/p>\n
It is understood personal terms between Benteke and Liverpool are a formality, although the Anfield club do not yet have permission to do the medical.<\/p>\n
Rodgers said on Thursday that despite the departure of England forward Sterling, 20, Liverpool could still attract top players.<\/p>\n
“Players are always going to want to come to Liverpool, it’s such an iconic club, it’s a great club,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The challenge for us is to get back in among the top teams, hopefully that continues to attract players.”<\/p>\n
Benteke joined Aston Villa from Genk in August 2012 for \u00a37m and has scored 49 goals in 101 appearances.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool have met a \u00a332.5m release clause for Aston Villa’s Belgium striker Christian Benteke, triggering a potential transfer. The 24-year-old scored 12 goals in 12 games in the 2014-15 season to help keep Villa in the Premier League. The Reds have bid for the player – and met the asking price – after receiving funds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":135433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-135432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/135433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}