Several UK media outlets are reporting that Southampton and England striker Rickie Lambert is close to agreeing a £4 million move to Liverpool.
Lambert is set to travel to the US on Sunday with the England national team and is expected to have a medical at Liverpool on Saturday.
Lambert spent time at the Liverpool academy in his youth before wandering the lower regions of English football before landing at Southampton in 2009. There he exploded into life in League One, scoring 30 goals in his first season at St Mary’s Stadium and 21 goals in the 2010-11 promotion winning season that followed.
Another 27 goals in the Championship helped Southampton to another promotion in the 2011-12 season, and he has scored 28 goals in his first two seasons as a Premier League player.
That form saw the 32-year-old rewarded with a place in England’s World Cup squad for this summer’s finals in Brazil, with Lambert now looking set to complete a fairy tale return to Liverpool ahead of the start of the next Premier League season.
Some will be surprised by the move from Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers to sign the target man after he swiftly off-loaded towering striker Andy Carroll following his appointment as Reds boss in the summer of 2012, but it seems as if he has always been a fan of his first summer transfer target.
“I think Rickie is a terrific player,” the Liverpool manager said of Lambert last year. “People look back now and say it was a mistake to let him go but there may have been something that was a factor.
“Rickie may not have been interested in football at the time or there may have been something else in his life. He just might not have been ready for what Liverpool was about at that time but there is absolutely no doubt within development that it cannot just be about what the player is now.”
Lampard is expected to be joined at Liverpool by fellow Saint Adam Lallana, who has been linked with a big money move to Anfield.
