Stefan Bajcetic will spend the second half of this season on loan at Las Palmas after the Liverpool midfielder pushed for his spell with RB Salzburg to be terminated.

There was no January recall option in the season-long loan deal that took Bajcetic to Salzburg last summer, so the expectation was that he would remain with the Austrian side until the end of the season, but the youngster was keen to move on following the sacking of manager Pep Lijnders last month.

The presence of Jurgen Klopp's former assistant in Salzburg was a key factor in Bajcetic's decision to move to Austria in the first place, but Lijnders was dismissed in December following a run of disappointing results.

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Bajcetic made his first competitive appearance since Lijnders' sacking as he came on as an 85th-minute substitute for Salzburg during the side's 4-1 defeat by Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

There is a winter break in the Austrian league, and Salzburg's match against Atletico was only the team's second competitive match since Lijnders' departure, with the first coming against Real Madrid last week, when Bajcetic was an unused substitute.

Salzburg paid a significant loan fee to land Bajcetic until the end of the campaign but was still willing to let him leave as he had fallen down the pecking order under new manager Thomas Letsch.

The Athletic reports that Bajcetic had a choice between Las Palmas and Porto, but opted for the former, where he is aiming for a run of starts ahead of returning to Liverpool and trying to force his way into Arne Slot's plans for the 2025-26 season.

Slot confirmed when Bajcetic was leaving for Salzburg that the player was in his long-term plans at Anfield: “I hope it will be a big year for him because he’s a very talented player and I think he could become a very important player for us, but only if he gets playing time now."

Slot added: "It’s a smart decision, at least in our opinion, to let him go somewhere, where he will hopefully play a lot of games. Then for next season, we’ll have a player. If he fulfils his potential, [he] could definitely, definitely play for us in the future.”