'We will pursue him' - chairman wants to sign Liverpool star 'in a heartbeat' as transfer fee claim made

Hull City have declared they would be interested in signing Liverpool attacking midfielder Fabio Carvalho on a permanent basis.

The 21-year-old is currently on loan at the Championship club where he is thriving. Having endured a difficult maiden season at Liverpool having arrived from Fulham, as well as struggling for minutes on loan at RB Leipzig in the first half of this campaign, Carvalho is once again enjoying regular action.

He has scored three goals in nine appearances so far to thrust Hull into contention to be promoted to the Premier League. Tigers executive vice-chairman Tan Kesler revealed that the club ensured that the finances were available to sign Carvalho in January.

And if Hull are to make a return to the top flight, they would look to prise the former Portugal under-21 international back to Yorkshire. Speaking to iNews, Kesler said: "In this business, how fast you get information is key. We monitor the German market closely and getting that information first gave us a competitive advantage but convincing players like Fabio isn’t easy.

“Even his agent, who is a great friend of ours, was shocked at our approach for him. He said: ‘Can you afford him?’ I said it’s not a matter of affording him, we want him so much we’re going to clear the budget for him.”

“I’m not going to say it’s easy because the financials are strong. [He has] a Premier League level salary [and] Liverpool are going to demand quite a bit of a transfer fee for him. The chairman (Acun Ilicali) would want to sign him, he would do it in a heartbeat, if there’s no FFP, no regulations, no control, I’m sure we will invest to sign Fabio.

“If we’re promoted for sure we will pursue him because of the money we would be receiving, we would try to allocate those finances on players like Fabio. It can be unrealistic expectations for some of our fans but we’re very optimistic. If any of this happens we will do it because he’s someone we would love to have long term.”