Brentford have announced the signing of Liverpool forward Fabio Carvalho, who has penned a five-year contract with the option of an extra 12 months.

News emerged of a transfer fee worth up to £27.5m being agreed by the two clubs in the past few days before the 21-year-old was left out of the Reds’ squads for their two friendlies on Sunday.

Southampton previously had a £15m offer rejected for Carvalho, who spent time on loan with RB Leipzig before starring for Hull City in his second move of last season, registering nine goals and two assists in the Championship.

Bees manager Thomas Frank told their website:  “Fabio is a player with a lot of qualities. He can play in all of the front three or four positions in a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1. His best position is probably as a number 10 or coming in from the left.

“Offensively, he has great abilities on the ball: he can go past players, slide a pass, create chances and get on the end of chances. He’s a type of player that we don’t have many of in the squad so he will add that something extra for us.

“His ability and mentality to work hard in the pressure is also very, very good. That’s along with him ticking all the boxes from a cultural perspective and being the right character. So we’re very pleased to see him come in and push the team forward.”

Arne Slot, who had been impressed with Carvalho during pre-season, revealed why the winger was not included in Liverpool’s squads to take on either Sevilla or Las Palmas over the weekend, saying: “From what’s been told to me, there is an agreement in place, but I haven’t spoken with our club.

“I was fully focused today on this game, so I don’t know exactly what the status of him is, but that was, of course, the reason why he wasn’t selected today.”

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