The official Liverpool FC website reports that Darren Potter has started a six-month loan deal with Southampton.
Potter was all set to join Hearts on a deal said to be worth around £10,000 per week, until an error was spotted in the contract. In the end this proved too much for the player and his agent who felts Hearts had been extremely unprofessional in their conduct of the deal. Potter had been looking forward to the move, but on balance it just did not seem right.
His loan deal sees him stay with troubled south coast side until May 31st. Chairman Rupert Lowe was the subject of fan protests at their home game last night. Harry Redknapp left earlier in the season to rejoin Saints’ rivals Portsmouth. The man in charge – sort of – at Southampton is George Burley, who was actually manager at Hearts when the Scottish side first showed interest in Potter.
Potter himself will be delighted to get the chance to play football
again – after playing in the early stages of Liverpool’s defence of
their European title Potter was rarely used again and played his last
match for the Reds this season in the Carling Cup defeat to Crystal
Palace, back in October.
Also appearing in that match was the Reds’ reserve captain David Raven.
The defender had also drawn reported interest from Hearts, but with
nothing forthcoming the 20-year-old now looks set to spend the rest of
the season on loan across the water at Tranmere. He made some
notable appearances for the first team last season, especially in the
Carling Cup as Rafa Benítez used his youngsters for most of the
competition’s matches prior to the final. The Carling Cup defeat this
season has been his only first team game of the season, and he is known
to be unhappy – not with the club, but at the lack of actual football
he’s getting.
Another player looking more and more likely to go out on loan is Mark
González, Liverpool’s young winger who’s yet to play for the club due
to injury concerns. González was denied a work permit on the first
attempt by the Home Office, because under their rules for footballers
González wasn’t good enough – his country, Chile, were too low in
FIFA’s rankings. Now Chile have moved up those rankings he would be
more likely to qualify, but it’s too soon to reapply under those rules.
As we mentioned earlier in the week the Reds have been trying to get
him a work permit under the “highly skilled migrant” rules. Obviously
the Home Office aren’t going to hurry just for Liverpool, even though
the transfer window closes in just a few more days. Also of concern to
the Home Office is that if the Reds are successful then this case could
be used by other clubs in the future to apply for work permits, so the
decision has to be right. With this in mind Rafa Benítez has lined up a
move to Spain for González on a six-month loan. The club thought to be
in mind is Real Sociedad, with Benítez said also to be considering
loaning a player back from the Spanish side as a short-term measure.