{"id":1272,"date":"2018-06-14T11:04:09","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T11:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2018-06-14T11:04:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T11:04:09","slug":"liverpool-football-club-transfer-rumour-round-up-june-14th-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/liverpool-football-club-transfer-rumour-round-up-june-14th-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool Football Club Transfer Rumour Round-Up: June 14th 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t know, what are the Reds like? They absolutely delight us all with the manner in which they pull off the Fabinho signing, with some wanting to build a statue of Michael Edwards outside the ground, and then the Nabil Fekir transfer turns into a saga before we even know what\u2019s happening. One minute it\u2019s as close to a done deal as you can get, with journalists on both sides of the English Channel saying we\u2019ve agreed a fee and personal terms, the next minute the whole thing\u2019s been cancelled and Lyon are saying he\u2019s staying there next season! Meanwhile the weirdos who like to attack the club at every opportunity get the perfect excuse to do so.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">What\u2019s happening? Same old same old! What happened with our attempt to sign the next Luis Suarez, Nabil Fekir? Are we going to buy him in two years time when his price has tripled? Like Salah &amp; Van Dijk? Come on FSG give us a break from this clowning around you sadomasochistics.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ade (@adie7mo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adie7mo\/status\/1005547168638361603?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 9, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The reality is, only the player\u2019s representatives and the two clubs know the full details of what happened over the weekend. What we know for certain is that the entire thing was agreed and then fell apart in the wake of the medical taking place. Fekir ruptured his knee ligaments when on international duty with France against Portugal in September 2015. It was reconstructed, allowing the player to return to duty for his club in 2016 but the medical obviously showed up something that concerned the Liverpool medical team and they sought a second opinion. Despite what those that might want to bash Fenway Sports Group might suggest, it will have been the revelations of the second opinion and not any penny-pinching that scuppered the deal.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_38\" style=\"width: 266px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38\" class=\"size-full wp-image-38\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/256px-John_W_Henry-Fenway_cropped.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"256\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/256px-John_W_Henry-Fenway_cropped.jpg 256w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/256px-John_W_Henry-Fenway_cropped-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 256px) 100vw, 256px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-38\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Webjedi (Own work) [GFDL (http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>Personally I\u2019m absolutely behind the club doing the right thing based on medical advice. Ultimately this manager is building for the long-term, so if a player can come in and do well next season but the doctors at the club can\u2019t be certain what will happen after that then it\u2019s not much use to us. There\u2019s a cautionary tale in that of Loic Remy, who we were close to signing before a medical showed up some issues. In the end he went to Chelsea and some sections of the fanbase went crazy, but he played thirty-two times for them over two season and has played twenty-five games since the start of 2016-2017. There\u2019s little point in spending around \u00a360 million of our budget on a player that we can have no guarantees of a long career from.<\/p>\n<h2>The Runners And Riders Of The Rumour Mill<\/h2>\n<p>It is, of course, entirely possible that we still sign Nabil Fekir. Indeed, the radio silence from the club &#8211; which is quite right, incidentally &#8211; is allowing people to suggest that a deal is \u2018far from dead\u2019. Yet there are other names that we\u2019ve been more solidly linked with.<\/p>\n<h3>The Ins?<\/h3>\n<p>Last week I thought that it might be a matter of hours rather than days before another singing was confirmed. I was nearly right, of course, with the Fekir deal being so close to completion that he had photos taken in the club shirt. In the end it fell apart, so who have we been linked with since?<\/p>\n<h4>Mario G\u00f6tze<\/h4>\n<p>In a way, Mario G\u00f6tze is responsible for the current look of the Liverpool team. The Germany international was high on our list of priorities two summers ago but decided that he didn\u2019t want to move to Merseyside because we\u2019d missed out on Champions League qualification. As a result, we turned our attentions elsewhere and, when he moved back to Borussia Dortmund, Sadio Man\u00e9 ended up being the man who arrived at Anfield in his stead. We all know what happened next with the Senegalese international, of course, whilst G\u00f6tze developed an illness known as myopathy and barely featured for the German side.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1275\" style=\"width: 268px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1275\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1275\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Mario_Goetze_Training_FC_Bayern_M\u00fcnchen-2-258x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"258\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Mario_Goetze_Training_FC_Bayern_M\u00fcnchen-2-258x400.jpg 258w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Mario_Goetze_Training_FC_Bayern_M\u00fcnchen-2-129x200.jpg 129w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Mario_Goetze_Training_FC_Bayern_M\u00fcnchen-2-768x1189.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Mario_Goetze_Training_FC_Bayern_M\u00fcnchen-2.jpg 774w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 258px) 100vw, 258px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1275\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Rufus46 [<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>], <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Mario_Goetze_Training_FC_Bayern_M%C3%BCnchen-2.jpg\">from Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>Now it seems as though we might be looking at him once again, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goal.com\/en\/news\/mario-gotze-still-keen-on-reunion-with-world-class-klopp\/bl715kfhbxyq1pdxu30ffh1mf\">Goal reporting that a reunion could still be on the cards<\/a>. The notion seems to be based on a documentary called \u2018Being Mario G\u00f6tze\u2019, in which the player says that J\u00fcrgen Klopp is a \u2018world-class coach\u2019 and working with him again is \u2018always an option\u2019. The departure of the World Cup winner from Signal Iduna Park is one of the hardest that our manager has ever had to cope with, spending the day in bed after finding out that he was leaving for Bayern Munich. How much stock there is in the story is up for some debate. On the one hand we need bodies and he\u2019s top drawer at his best, yet on the other his absence for the best part of two seasons after illness must be a concern. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Likelihood Rating: 4\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>Gelson Martins<\/h4>\n<p>Speaking of players that we\u2019ve been linked with before who ended up not coming and being replaced by someone else, Gelson Martins\u2019s name has resurfaced as a possible target. Last summer we were rumoured to be thinking about making a move for the Sporting Lisbon winger, only to end up signing Mohamed Salah instead. As with Man\u00e9\/G\u00f6tze, I think Michael Edwards will be pretty pleased with how that decision worked out. We\u2019ve got something of a reputation for going back in for players that we\u2019ve been interested in in the past, so it\u2019s no major surprised to see our interest reinvigorated after it emerged that Martins, along with a number of other Sporting players, wants to terminate his contract following an incident at the club\u2019s training ground when a group of Ultras <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2018\/may\/15\/sporting-lisbon-intruders-training-attack-players-staff\">broke in and attacked players and staff.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1274\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1274\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1274\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Russia-Portugal_CC2017_14_cropped-215x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"215\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Russia-Portugal_CC2017_14_cropped-215x400.jpg 215w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Russia-Portugal_CC2017_14_cropped-107x200.jpg 107w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Russia-Portugal_CC2017_14_cropped.jpg 446w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By \u0414\u043c\u0438\u0442\u0440\u0438\u0439 \u0421\u0430\u0434\u043e\u0432\u043d\u0438\u043a\u043e\u0432 (soccer.ru) [<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html\">CC BY-SA 3.0GFDL<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html\">GFDL<\/a>], <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Russia-Portugal_CC2017_(14)_(cropped).jpg\">via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>Four players informed the Portuguese Securities Market Commission this week that they wanted to break their contract with the club and the twenty-three-year-old is one of them. There\u2019s a possibility that the players will change their minds if the club\u2019s President, Bruno De Carvalho, were to leave the club, but there\u2019s no guarantee. If he does indeed go through with his threat to cancel his contract then it would mean that he\u2019d be available on a free and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpoolecho.co.uk\/sport\/football\/transfer-news\/liverpool-could-snap-up-gelson-14772936\">the Liverpool Echo are reporting we\u2019re keen on signing him<\/a>. It feels a little bit like one of those rumours when someone\u2019s just put the name of a player we\u2019ve been linked with in the past into an article with us because of his situation. He\u2019s being strongly linked with Arsenal this time around and his ten goals in forty-two games suggests that might be about right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Likelihood Rating: 3.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>Federico Chiesa<\/h4>\n<p>Is it possible that we\u2019re going to go head-to-head with Manchester United over the signing of a winger from Fiorentina? The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/sport\/football\/973781\/Liverpool-Man-Utd-transfer-news-62m-winger-Federico-Chiesa-rumours-gossip\">Daily Express certainly seem to think so<\/a>, suggesting that we\u2019re going to do battle with our nemesis for the signature of Federico Chiesa. The twenty-year-old is reportedly also attracting the attention of Manchester City and Napoli, which is at least rather good company to be keeping. I remember not so long ago that we appeared to be doing battle with the likes of Everton and West Brom over signings, so this feels like more of a step in the right direction. The Italian enjoyed something of a breakout season for La Viola last time out, scoring six goals in thirty-eight games.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not entirely convinced that that\u2019s enough for the Reds to be in for him, however. The media seem to think that the Italians want more than sixty million for him, which is a huge amount of money for an untested player. This rumour feels more like one where the player\u2019s agent or the selling club want to drive the price up, so they link him with a move to a club that\u2019s known to be looking for attacking players. That said, the recruitment department have done a good job in recent years of identifying players that are going to go on to great things, so maybe he\u2019s exactly the sort of one that they\u2019re after.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Likelihood Rating: 2\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>Jasper Cillessen<\/h4>\n<p>It wouldn\u2019t be a Liverpool transfer gossip piece without a link to a goalkeeper now, would it? Having spent about the past four months talking about Alisson, it now seems as though he might be a bit too rich for our blood. Real Madrid are also interested in getting him and it\u2019s believed that he\u2019d prefer a move there, so our only way of doing enough to get him to choose Merseyside over Madrid is by doing what the current European champions won\u2019t and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/sport\/football\/transfers\/liverpool-transfer-news-alisson-latest-updates-roma-talks-fail-to-progress-a8396626.html\">paying Roma\u2019s asking price<\/a>. Given that that sits at about \u00a370 million, which is around double the current record for a shot-stopper, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1273\" style=\"width: 562px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1273\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1273\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dnepr-Ajax_6-552x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"552\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dnepr-Ajax_6-552x400.jpg 552w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dnepr-Ajax_6-276x200.jpg 276w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dnepr-Ajax_6-140x100.jpg 140w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dnepr-Ajax_6.jpg 651w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1273\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Football.ua [<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html\">CC BY-SA 3.0GFDL<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html\">GFDL<\/a>], <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Dnepr-Ajax_(6).jpg\">via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>As Simon Mignolet will surely be leaving the club soon and no one is likely to trust Loris Karius any time soon, we still will need a goalkeeper. Enter the name of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-5827681\/Liverpool-Chelsea-Barcelona-goalkeeper-Jasper-Cillessen.html\">Jasper Cillessen<\/a>. Currently Barcelona\u2019s second-choice goalie, he certainly has experience given that he\u2019s twenty-nine. It\u2019s also not the most outrageous suggestion so far, when you think about the teams that he\u2019s played for and things that he\u2019s achieved. He won the title with Ajax three times and was also Barca\u2019s cup goalkeeper when they won the Copa del Rey in both 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. A Dutch international, he between the sticks when the Oranje finished third at the FIFA World Cup in 2014.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Likelihood Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>The Outs<\/h3>\n<p>There\u2019s been one big named departure this week, though there was little surprise in terms of who it is, and one departure that feels as though it\u2019s been a long time coming\u2026.<\/p>\n<h4>Emre Can and Jon Flanagan<\/h4>\n<p>Normally I\u2019d give both players their own small section of this piece, but as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpoolfc.com\/news\/first-team\/304212-emre-can-jon-flanagan-liverpool-fc\">the club lumped their names together in their official announcement<\/a>, it only felt right that I should do the same. The German hasn\u2019t actually joined anyone yet, though it\u2019s probably one of the worst kept secrets in football that he\u2019ll be off to Juventus unless something dramatic happens. It\u2019s entirely possible that one of the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United or Chelsea might want to persuade him to remain in the Premier League, but I\u2019m not convinced he\u2019ll think it\u2019s really for him. At his best he was a brilliant player, but too often he chewed the ball against deeper-lying defences and I think he\u2019ll be more suited to the slower pace of Italian football.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#x1f399; | Marotta:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For the moment, Higua\u00edn has not asked to be sold. Emre Can is set to arrive within the next 10-days. Cancelo is an interesting profile. Icardi is just fantasy talk.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5cmIiho3TP\">pic.twitter.com\/5cmIiho3TP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Arjun &#x1f1e6;&#x1f1f7; &#x1f1eb;&#x1f1f7; &#x1f1ed;&#x1f1f7; &#x1f1f3;&#x1f1ec; (@IndianRegista) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndianRegista\/status\/1006581185357606912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 12, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As for Flanagan, the Academy graduate got far more playing time than anyone expected during the 2013-2014 season, making himself something of a cult hero after scoring against Tottenham in our 5-0 rout over the London club at White Hart Lane. That was partly to do with the fact that he seemed to get <strong>very<\/strong> excited about scoring\u2026Any cult status he might have boasted disappeared in the wake of him assaulting his girlfriend in December of 2017, however, and now most supporters will simply shrug their shoulders when his name is mentioned. As with Can, his contract has come to its end and so he\u2019s free to go where he wants, with Celtic and Rangers apparently interested.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>The Nabil Fekir drama will unquestionably hang over the club until we sign someone else, but we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of the fact that we\u2019re already ahead of the curve in terms of who we\u2019ve brought in so far. Now let\u2019s all watch the World Cup and decide which players we should be paying big bucks for.<\/p>\n<p>Until next week\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t know, what are the Reds like? They absolutely delight us all with the manner in which they pull off the Fabinho signing, with some wanting to build a statue of Michael Edwards outside the ground, and then the Nabil Fekir transfer turns into a saga before we even know what\u2019s happening. One minute it\u2019s as close to a done deal as you can get, with journalists on both sides of the English Channel saying we\u2019ve agreed a fee and personal terms, the next minute the whole thing\u2019s been cancelled and Lyon are saying he\u2019s staying there next season! [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1276,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/1276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}