Liverpool Signs £60m Defender Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes
Liverpool’s defensive future walked through the door on Wednesday, and it comes with a £60m price tag and a rebuilt shoulder.
Jeremy Jacquet, the highly rated centre-back from Rennes, has finally completed his long-awaited move to Anfield, a deal first struck in January and now officially over the line. The numbers are stark: £55m up front, another £5m in add-ons. Only Virgil van Dijk has ever cost Liverpool more as a defender.
And crucially for Andoni Iraola, Jacquet is ready to go.
A big fee, a bigger stage
At 20, Jacquet arrives not as a project to be tucked away in the academy, but as a fully fledged option for the first team. Liverpool’s medical staff have signed off on his recovery from season-ending shoulder surgery, and he is expected to be involved from the start of pre-season later this month.
“I feel really good, the first impressions are good and I am very happy to start here,” he told Liverpoolfc.com, his words matching the ambition of the club that chased him through the winter window. “For me it’s a big dream, it’s a big club. A club like Liverpool, it’s a big dream for me.”
Liverpool had to fight for that dream. Interest across Europe was serious, with Chelsea among the most persistent suitors, but the defender chose Anfield and the chance to learn alongside Van Dijk, the standard-bearer for modern centre-backs and now the most obvious reference point for the club’s latest investment.
Van Dijk turns 35 this month. Jacquet arrives as the heir-in-waiting, but also as immediate competition.
From operating table to AXA Training Centre
The move might easily have unravelled. Shortly after the deal was agreed around deadline day, Jacquet fell awkwardly during Rennes’ 3-1 defeat to Lens in early February, leaving the pitch in visible pain. Scans confirmed the worst: surgery required, season over.
Liverpool stuck to the plan.
Jacquet went under the knife a few weeks later and has spent his summer break on the comeback trail, following an individually tailored programme designed to have him sharp for his first sessions at the AXA Training Centre. Those close to the process say he has been back on the pitch already, working through the final stages of his rehabilitation with the kind of intensity that first drew Liverpool’s scouts to him.
Now he walks into a centre-back group in flux. He will compete for minutes with Joe Gomez, Giovanni Leoni and Van Dijk, under a new head coach in Iraola who is expected to take his senior captain on the club’s summer tour of the United States after the Netherlands’ round-of-32 exit at the World Cup.
A changing of the guard
Jacquet’s arrival comes on the very day another French defender walks out. Real Madrid have formally completed the signing of Ibrahima Konate, who leaves Liverpool as a free agent after talks over a new contract dragged on for close to two years and ultimately collapsed.
For Liverpool, it is a brutal piece of timing but also a clear line in the sand. Konate goes to La Liga for nothing. Jacquet comes in for a fee that underlines how determined the club are to reset their defensive core without delay.
The strategy stretches beyond one signing. Eleven months ago, Liverpool paid just under £30m to bring in Giovanni Leoni from Parma, convinced they had secured one of the best young defenders in Italy. With Jacquet now on board, they believe they have paired that bet with the standout young centre-back from France.
Leoni’s own story is still paused. The 19-year-old suffered an ACL injury on his debut against Southampton in the Carabao Cup last September, a cruel full stop on what was supposed to be his introduction to English football. He has been back in the gym at the AXA Centre for some time, and Iraola is expected to give an update on his progress this month.
If Leoni returns strongly and Jacquet adapts quickly, Liverpool’s long-term defensive picture starts to look less like a puzzle and more like a plan.
The next chapter
For now, the focus turns to the first training drills, the first duels, the first glimpse of how Jacquet carries himself in a dressing room that has seen major change and expects more. He is stepping into a defence that has been built, broken, and rebuilt around Van Dijk. He is also stepping into a club that does not spend £60m on a centre-back to keep him in the shadows.
The dream Jacquet spoke about is real enough. The question now is simple: how quickly can he turn it into a new reality for Liverpool’s back line?
