Sport
SHOCKING! Another Club ”Hijack” The Deal Of Pedro Neto Replacement
Liverpool make shock move to ‘hijack’ Man Utd transfer as Wolves line up exciting Pedro Neto replacement
Welcome to the weekend, and welcome to Saturday’s dose of Premier League transfer rumour analysis. Every day, we pick out three of the biggest and boldest stories doing the rounds from the past 24 hours and assess whether they’re plausible or something the clubs should even be contemplating in the first place – and we start with a big story from the North West.
Wolves eye Neto replacement
Within an hour of reports that Chelsea had agreed a deal to sign Pedro Neto for around £54m on Friday afternoon, the rumour mill already had Wolverhampton Wanderers working on a replacement – or at least, Sport Witness did, with sources in the Portuguese media apparently claiming that Gary O’Neil has taken a shine to Ajax youngster Carlos Forbs.
The 20-year-old winger played 21 Eredivise games last season after he was snapped up from Manchester City’s academy, scoring twice and setting three more up for his team-mates. Apparently contact has already been made between the clubs and while Wolves think that Ajax want “too much” for now, the gap in valuations “doesn’t appear to be the end of the matter.”
Football Insider reckon that Liverpool are launching an unexpected bid for Bayern Munich’s Matthijs de Ligt and are hoping to “hijack” a deal that many expected to be made with hated rivals Manchester United.
Apparently, Arne Slot sees the defence as a “priority” as he’s been unimpressed by Ibrahima Konaté, but this is the first we’ve heard about his interest in his fellow Dutchman. Manchester United have been working hard on a deal for De Ligt for weeks after the defender fell out of favour at Bayern, and out of Thomas Tuchel’s good graces.
The 3AM Verdict: The report comes slightly out of leftfield and it’s the first we’ve heard of Liverpool’s interest and it’s fair to note that Football Insider have a rather patchy track record, but it’s not inherently implausible – Liverpool do need a defender, after all, and De Ligt is available for the right price. That said, he’s not the kind of centre-half who’s necessarily well-equipped to play in an aggressive high line, which is Slot’s usual way, and he makes rather more sense from a playing perspective for United. But Slot knows his plans rather better than we do…
