Derby County and Swansea City were linked with the Liverpool midfielder.

Liverpool were reportedly set to allow James McConnell leave late in the transfer window before Arne Slot intervened.

The Reds allowed Jayden Danns join Sunderland on deadline day earlier this month. The striker, who is currently injured, will get his first taste of regular senior experience at the Championship promotion hopefuls. Danns will join Ben Doak (Middlesbrough), Owen Beck (Blackburn Rovers) and Lewis Koumas (Stoke City) in the Championship while Stefan Bajcetic moved to La Liga side Las Palmas having been at Red Bull Salzburg.

In addition, there was a lot of talk surrounding McConnell’s future. The midfielder made a first-team breakthrough last season, playing nine times in all competitions including coming off the bench in the Carabao Cup final victory over Chelsea at Wembley.

Trio were keen

McConnell missed a prolonged period of this season because of an injury but has impressed since working his way into Slot’s thinking. In a 3-2 Champions League loss to PSV Eindhoven, the 20-year-old was handed his full debut and was named man of the match.

The Daily Mail reports that Championship duo Swansea City and Derby County were keen on McConnell’s services along with League One high-fliers Wycombe Wanderers. It is suggested that Liverpool loans manager Matt Newberry was ‘ready to sanction the deal’ before the ‘curveball’ from Slot.

The Liverpool head coach was highly impressed by McConnell’s performance and admitted at his post-match press conference that he would not be leaving on a temporary basis. Slot said: “At the moment we have most of our players fit, so we will have this discussion tomorrow, me and Richard [Hughes], about these players.

“There is definitely one of them that will not go on loan – and I think you know which one I mean. James McConnell. I wouldn’t say definitely, but I liked him a lot today, so maybe now the end result today would be it’d be good for him to go somewhere and play. He was also a player that hasn’t played in the last six or seven months 90 minutes because he was injured for a while. He impressed me a lot today.”

What McConnell said

Speaking after his Liverpool full debut against PSV, McConnell told the club’s website: "I think the boss has put faith in a lot of young lads tonight thanks to the work that all the senior lads have done over the course of the season to put us in such a good position.

"I'm really grateful to the boss and you've just got to try to take the opportunity when it comes to you, even if it was a tough game like that.

"It was obviously a good experience. It was very disappointing, the result. We thought we could have got something from the game, especially at half-time we [thought] we should have been comfortably winning the game. "But in the end, we got punished and we [went] a man down in the last 10 minutes, so it was tough. But the lads put in a big shift and it is what it is in the end.”