Lazio have confirmed the signing of Liverpool youngster Bobby Adekanye after he decided against extending his contract on Merseyside.
As reported by Goal in December 2018, Adekanye had informed the club that he planned to run down his existing deal and leaving on a free transfer, with Lazio a potential destination.
The 20-year-old forward would later publicly confirm his intentions in March 2019, revealing that injuries had curtailed his progress and that he had made the decision to exit the Premier League club.
"I expected that I would get a chance at Liverpool sooner. Before I came, we talked about it. They said that if I had a good first season, I had a good chance of joining the first team," he told Voetbalzone.nl.
"Due to injury, that did not come true. I had to undergo surgery at the start of my second season and then it is difficult to return."
Adekanye is reported to have signed a four-year contract with the Serie A side and has seemingly been given assurances over his participation in Simone Inzaghi's first team.
He had previously suggested that Barcelona were interested in signing him, although it is ultimately Lazio that he has decided to sign for.
He said in March: "They [Lazio] are one of the clubs that is interested, but it is not yet 100 per cent decided.
"I also heard from Barcelona. In the Netherlands, Willem II came by. I can't name the entire list of clubs now, because then we will be busy tomorrow. But there is interest from, among others, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.
"In the summer I am going to talk about it with my family and business manager Junior Minguella, I am not worried that I will have no club."
Liverpool, who signed the Nigeria-born Dutch youth international from Barca in 2015, had been keen to extend Adekanye's deal at Anfield, with them being prepared to allow him to leave in January 2019 in order to gain first-team experience.
Club sources confirmed to Goal that delays in contract negotiations frustrated the club, however, and the decision was made that he would leave the Reds having failed to make a single appearance for Jurgen Klopp's first team.