Bournemouth sign Liverpool’s Jordan Ibe for £15 million

Bournemouth have signed the Liverpool winger Jordon Ibe for a club-record transfer fee, understood to be £15 million. The 20-year-old has agreed a four-year contract with the Premier League club, whose previous record transfer outlay was for the striker Benik Afobe in January.

Ibe agreed personal terms before completing a medical in England on Wednesday. Ibe will now fly out to meet his join Bournemouth team-mates in the United States, on the club’s pre-season tour of Chicago and Minnesota. He could make his first appearance for the club against Minnesota United on Wednesday.

Ibe signed a new long-term contract with Liverpool last May and scored in the club’s final game of the season at West Bromwich Albion last term. The lure of first-team football attracted Ibe, who only made 12 starts under Jürgen Klopp last season, into joining Bournemouth after the arrival of Southampton’s Sadio Mané at Anfield pushed him further down the pecking order.

“We’re delighted to bring Jordon to the football club,” the Bournemouth chief executive Neill Blake told the club website. “We’ve now signed five players this summer, all of whom have an abundance of potential. It shows that we’re serious about nurturing talent at this football club and we have the long term in mind when we say we want to stay in the Premier League.”

The winger will help fill the void left by Matt Ritchie, who departed for Newcastle at the start of July. Ibe, who can operate on both flanks, will provide competition to Junior Stanislas, Max Gradel, Marc Pugh and Ryan Fraser, who spent much of last season on loan at Ipswich Town. Ibe, who joined Liverpool as a 16-year-old from Wycombe Wanderers, becomes Eddie Howe’s fifth summer signing, following the arrivals of Lewis Cook, Lys Mousset, Emerson Hyndman and Nathan Aké.

Meanwhile, Bournemouth are interested in the Bolton Wanderers and England Under-21 defender Rob Holding, who also has admirers from other Premier League clubs, including Arsenal. The Queen’s Park Rangers defender Steven Caulker, Reading’s Jordan Obita and Tottenham’s Ryan Mason are also thought to be of interest.

(Guardian service)