Liverpool will reportedly sign USA U-18 Brooks Lennon

One of the United States' best U-18 players looks set to join Liverpool. According to the Daily Mail, Brooks Lennon is all set to sign with the club, but he needs clearance from the Home Office before he can do so because he does not have a work permit. The Reds are apparently hopeful that he will be allowed to sign.

Lennon has been on Liverpool's radar for more than a year. He trained with them in Liverpool on multiple occasions and joined them for their preseason tour in the U.S. By the end of 2014, there were rumors that the Reds would try to sign him in January and it looks like that is happening now.

The 17-year-old Arizona native is a speedy winger who was one of the more highly regarded players on the U.S. U-17 team and has remained a part of the national team set-up with the U-18s. He is part of Real Salt Lake's Arizona academy so he could be signed by the MLS club, but that has not looked especially likely for a while.

Liverpool are hardly the only European team to show interest in the American. Aston Villa were linked to him, as were Sporting Lisbon, but he's been pegged for Merseyside since the beginning of 2014.

If Lennon gets cleared by the Home Office and signed with Liverpool, he'll join another young American, Marc Pelosi. The 20-year-old was well-regarded with various U.S. youth teams and has drawn praise at every level with Liverpool. Now he's with the U-21s and was even named to the team's Europa League roster. The Reds look to have made signing promising young Americans somewhat of a priority, first with Pelosi and now with Lennon. It wouldn't be a surprise if they signed some more in the next few years, but first, hopefully Pelosi and Lennon can progress to the first team because having Americans at big clubs doesn't matter much if they never make it out of the academy.