Liverpool Signs Young Defender Jeremy Jacquet for £60m

Liverpool have won the race for one of Europe’s most coveted young defenders, completing a £60m deal for Rennes centre-back Jeremy Jacquet.

The 20-year-old passed his medical on Deadline Day in February and has now signed a five-year contract at Anfield, with an option for a further year. Liverpool will pay a guaranteed £55m, with another £5m tied to performance-related add-ons – a price that underlines how highly they rate a player who is still waiting for his first senior France cap.

Liverpool beat Chelsea to prized prospect

Chelsea matched Liverpool’s offer, pound for pound. Same fee, same structure. Jacquet chose Anfield.

For a club that has spent the last two windows aggressively lowering the age profile of its squad, this is exactly the kind of battle Liverpool want to be winning. Jacquet arrives as part of a first-team recruitment strategy built around emerging, elite-level talent; the average age of their signings across the last two windows sits below 22.

For Jacquet, the move is the realisation of a long-held ambition. Speaking to Liverpool’s official website, he described joining the club as “a big dream” and admitted he could already picture himself in the surroundings after seeing the facilities. He spoke of feeling “very happy” and “very excited to get started” – the language of a player who knows this is the defining step of his young career.

From Rennes project to Anfield’s new pillar

Jacquet’s rise has been rapid rather than loud.

Rennes recalled him from a loan spell in France’s second tier after impressive performances at Clermont, then watched him grow under coach Habib Beye. His development accelerated last season and again this year, enough for major clubs across Europe to circle.

Rennes resisted. Beye even warned publicly that letting Jacquet go would force the club to “downgrade” their ambitions for the season. They lost that fight. Liverpool’s offer – and their plan for him – proved decisive.

French football expert Julien Laurens is convinced the Premier League champions have landed a future star. He calls Jacquet “the real deal”, comparing his emergence to the early breakthroughs of William Saliba at Saint-Etienne and Wesley Fofana. The caveat is obvious: like those two at the start, Jacquet has yet to play for France’s senior team or in the Champions League or Europa League. The leap is big. Liverpool believe he can make it.

European football analyst Kevin Hatchard strikes a similar note. Jacquet, he points out, has long been seen as a rising star in France, captaining multiple youth age groups and ticking every box of the modern centre-back profile: composed on the ball, wide passing range, athletic, dominant in the air. What he lacks is a long track record at the highest level.

That is the gamble. That is also the opportunity.

Slotting into a heavyweight defensive unit

Liverpool are not buying a project for tomorrow and hiding him in the academy. Jacquet will join the first-team squad immediately as one of the club’s senior centre-backs, lining up alongside Virgil van Dijk, Geovanni Leoni and Joe Gomez.

He arrives with a recent shoulder injury in his past, but the club are satisfied. Jacquet has completed his rehabilitation programme and is already back in individual fitness work. Barring setbacks, he is expected to be available for the start of pre-season.

That timing matters. Pre-season at Liverpool is no gentle introduction; it is an immersion course. The defensive line is drilled relentlessly, distances measured, triggers rehearsed. A young defender coming into a unit marshalled by Van Dijk will learn quickly or be exposed just as fast.

Liverpool’s recruitment team, though, have a clear pattern. They identify high-ceiling players early, pay big before the rest of Europe fully commits, and back their environment to turn potential into dominance. With Jacquet, they have gone hard again on upside.

The fee is heavy for someone “who hasn’t really proved much”, as Laurens bluntly puts it. Yet this is the going rate for potential at the very top of the game – especially for a profile clubs find increasingly rare: a 20-year-old centre-back, already a leader in youth international football, comfortable in possession and aggressive without it.

Liverpool believe that combination is worth the risk. The question now is how quickly Jeremy Jacquet can turn that belief into authority on the Premier League stage.