Schalke torpedoed van den Berg’s move to Blackburn Rovers

“Was known he was here”

FC Schalke 04 recently successfully straddled Blackburn Rovers in their bid for Liverpool’s central defender Sepp van den Berg. The 20-year-old Dutchman joined the Royal Blues on loan from the Reds on August 30, just before the end of the summer window, after the Bundesliga promoted team sold home-grown Malick Thiaw (21) to AC Milan the day before. After that, Schalke apparently made short work of it.

“At the end of June there were a few players that we missed,” explained Gregg Broughton (quoted via Lancashire Telegraph), the new director of football at Rovers, looking back on the past “fast-paced” transfer window. In total, the championship club has presented six newcomers, and van den Berg should actually have been on that list.

According to Broughton, the blue-whites were close to completion with the long-term Liverpool professional. “I think it was common knowledge that he was here, doing his medical, giving his interviews and taking pictures with the media team. Then there was injury at Liverpool and they weren’t willing to let him go, even though everything was settled for us.” After coach Jürgen Klopp’s team beat Bournemouth FC 9-0 on 27 August, momentum came back briefly into the matter.

Blackburn Rovers didn’t want to wait for van den Berg – then Schalke came

“We got the call that the deal could go through pretty quickly. But then Schalke sold a player to AC Milan overnight and things shifted again,” revealed manager Broughton, who took office in early June. We weren’t ready to wait for Sepp to make up his mind and had to act quickly to sign both Dom and Clinton.” No sooner said than done. Instead of van den Berg, defenders Dominic Hyam (26, from Coventry City) and Clinton Mola (21, on loan from VfB Stuttgart) came to Blackburn Rovers at the last minute.

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