Liverpool have confirmed a new long-term contract for one defender who's gone out on loan for this season.
Calum Scanlon had been earmarked for another temporary spell at Cardiff City, to whom he was loaned out for the second half of last term, making eight appearances as they sealed an immediate return to the Championship.
The left-back featured in all three of the Reds' friendlies on their pre-season tour to the United States but wasn't involved in the defeat to Monaco at Anfield last weekend ( Sofascore ).
At midday on Saturday, Liverpool announced on their official website that the 21-year-old has signed a new long-term deal with the Reds and rejoined Cardiff on loan for the 2026/27 campaign.
Scanlon could make the first appearance of his second spell for the Bluebirds on Monday night when they host Welsh rivals Wrexham in their first Championship fixture of the season.
The left-back has made two competitive senior appearances for his parent club, both of which came in the Europa League group stage three years ago ( Transfermarkt ).
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This appears to be the perfect outcome for the Birmingham native, who should (hopefully) enjoy regular game-time at a club with which he's already familiar, whilst also being demonstrably shown plenty of faith by Liverpool in the form of his new contract.
Barring an injury crisis at left-back (not wholly unthinkable at Anfield, in truth), Scanlon would've been left biding his time behind Milos Kerkez and Kostas Tsimikas had he remained on Merseyside, so he's much better off to be out on loan and having a plausible chance of playing regularly this season.
The Greece international's contract expires next summer and it's plausible that he could then leave the Reds, so there might be an opening for the Cardiff loanee to return to L4 at that stage as the foremost deputy for the Hungarian.
He'll be hoping to emulate Conor Bradley in using a successful EFL loan spell (Bolton, in the right-back's case) as a springboard towards being ready for the Liverpool first team, with the Northern Ireland skipper capably backing up Trent Alexander-Arnold before then becoming a frequent starter under Arne Slot.
We wish Scanlon the very best of luck in the Welsh capital and hope that he can avoid any recurrence of the injury troubles which haunted him over the past couple of years.
