Barcelona's Héctor Fort on Liverpool's Radar Amid Transfer Speculation

Ronald Araújo’s arrival looked like it had closed the door. A seasoned defender who can marshal the centre and slide across to right back, the Uruguayan seemed to tick off two needs in one move and calm any talk of more defensive business before the window shuts.

Not quite.

In Spain, Sport are reporting that Barcelona’s 20-year-old right back Héctor Fort has appeared on Liverpool’s radar. The Catalan outlet link the youngster not just with the Anfield side but with a queue of clubs across Europe: Inter Milan, Fulham, Tottenham. When everyone is “interested,” the signal can get a little lost in the noise.

The more concrete noise comes from closer to home. Everton are being painted as the likeliest Premier League destination for Fort, a player who has spent the last decade climbing through Barcelona’s academy and into the first-team picture. He already has 24 senior appearances for Barça, 20 of them coming in the 2024-25 season, and he spent the previous campaign on loan at Elche to accelerate his development.

Not long ago, Fort was widely tipped as the heir to the right-back spot at Camp Nou. Coaches and scouts inside the club saw him as the next in line, the natural successor in a position Barcelona have struggled to lock down since the days of Dani Alves.

That internal view has shifted. The buzz now centres on another prospect, Xavi Espart, who is increasingly regarded as the more likely long-term solution on the right side of defence. With Espart’s stock rising, Fort’s pathway has narrowed—and that, according to the reports, has pushed him towards the transfer market.

So while Araújo shores up one back line on Merseyside, the other side of Stanley Park may yet move for a Barcelona-trained fullback whose future, not long ago, seemed destined to stay in Catalonia.