The Liverpool Echo has poured cold water on the rumours suggesting Liverpool are going to sign Jack Butland with them reporting that the Reds have 'zero interest' in the Stoke City goalkeeper and are not intending to sign any new stopper between now and next Friday's deadline.

After Adrian's tough time against Aston Villa last weekend, fresh speculation arose that the Reds would look for a new stopper with Alisson out injured and Butland's name appeared to be the most spoken about which was surprising, to say the least, given his form in recent seasons and the fact he's struggled to get into the Stoke team of late.

A fine goalkeeper during the best days of his career so far, Butland was rightly in the England picture but he hasn't been at that level for a number of seasons, and Kevin Phillips' comments - via Football Insider - underline why the Reds were surely never seriously going to make a move:

“Over the past two years Jack has been far too inconsistent. When I worked with him he made far too many mistakes.

“For me, he has fallen right down the pecking order of Championship goalkeepers."

Jurgen Klopp has shown great coaching in getting players from the likes of Hull with Andy Robertson, Southampton with Virgil van Dijk and Newcastle with Gini Wjinaldum and turning them into world-class players but they were all in good individual form when they joined, on upward curves and the German had time to mould them.

Here, Butland is bang out of form, with it not yet clear as to where his career is going, low on confidence and the talk was he'd be thrown into the game against Everton of all teams next weekend for his debut, so no time for development.

None of it made sense in terms of Liverpool's recent approach to signing players from outside the 'big six' and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's been confirmed that these stories were nothing but pure speculation.