RB Leipzig on Sunday ruled out an early switch to Liverpool for Naby Keita, who is scheduled to join the Merseyside giants next season.
The 22-year-old midfielder has a contract to join Liverpool in the next transfer window, but Liverpool reportedly wanted the Guinean to join them sooner after selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona last week for €160 million (Dh716.9m).
However, on Sunday Leipzig insisted once and for all that Keita will not leave before the end of the season.
"OFFICIAL: Naby #Keita will remain an #RBLeipzig player until 30th June 2018. We wish to put the speculation about a January move to @LFC (Liverpool) to bed," RB Leipzig wrote on their official Twitter account.
Leipzig then tweeted a quote from their director of sport Ralf Rangnick.
"We won't allow Liverpool to sign him early, even though they have shown renewed interest to bring him in during this transfer window," said Rangnick.
The midfielder showed his class with a superb deflected goal from the edge of the box in Saturday's 3-1 home win over Schalke, a victory that moved Leipzig up to second in the league table.
Germany's top-selling daily Bild ran the headline "Bye-bye goal for Keita?" and many other German media outlets speculated earlier on Sunday that this was his final match for Leipzig.
Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool are set to pay around €70m for the midfielder when he joins in July, but reports claim they would have had to pay an extra €15m for Leipzig to release Keita this January.
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Read more
Oxlade Chamberlain: Liverpool will be fine without Coutinho
With Coutinho gone Liverpool fans impatient to see Keita
Liverpool must fill Coutinho-shaped hole collectively
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Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
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Four motivational quotes from Alicia's Dubai talk
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Qosty Byogaani
Starring: Hani Razmzi, Maya Nasir and Hassan Hosny
Four stars
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