? INTER PREPARING £35M MANE BID? | LFC DAILY NEWS

It’s August 1st and with the start of the Premier League season getting even closer, Chris is back once again with the transfer news and rumours for today. We begin with the absolute BULLSHIT that is the Daily Express’ ???exclusive’ claiming that Inter Milan are readying a £35million bid for Sadio Mane. I honestly think it could be the worst and most ridiculous transfer rumour I’ve heard so far this summer. Why on earth would Liverpool seek to be letting to let Sadio Mane go? And if they were to decide to sell, why would they let him go for such a small price. Look at the inflation of the market these days. Look at how much quality players are being sold and bought for. Just yesterday, Nemanja Matic completed a £40million move to Man United. Matic is a class player who is a very decent signing for them, but is he worth more money than Sadio Mane? Absolutely no way! Mane stays. What an embarrassing story for the Express. Next Chris discussed the current reports linking Liverpool with a move for Bayern Munich midfielder Renato Sanches. He’s struggled for game time in his year at the Allianz so far, but even when he has played, he hasn’t been the amazing player people have made him out to be. This time it’s German outlet Bild reporting the story, and the way it’s phrased is that if Coutinho ???jumps ship’ this summer at Liverpool, Klopp will swoop for Sanches. It’s certainly plausible that Liverpool are considering replacements for Coutinho on the off-chance the worst case scenario arises, but again, we think it’s all bollocks. Phil is staying, therefore Sanches isn’t coming. End of story. We move on to the latest on Naby Keita. Unfortunately, it’s becoming less likely by the day that this deal is going to be pulled off. We gave it a good try, but now respected journalist Chris Williams is claiming that RB Leipzig are ready to hand the midfielder a new contract, with increased wages and the removal of that much talked about release clause set to be activated next year. His tweets wrote: “#RBL have closed their business window. Yannick Gerhardt will be revisited, potentially in Jan. Also, RB keeping a close eye on Torino star. “#RBL will now look to tie Keita to a new deal, an improvement in wages and no doubt a removal of the clause that has been so talked about.” It sounds pretty conclusive, particularly for this summer. It also means that buying him next summer has just become even more difficult, if it’s true that that £48million release clause will be taken out. It’s becoming increasingly hard to believe that Naby Keita will be wearing an LFC any time soon, but we can still all hope. Some better news however, is that Southampton appear to be preparing for the departure of Virgil van Dijk. Reports today are suggesting that the Saints are preparing a £12million bid for Lazio’s Wesley Hoedt. This is a big boost in our pursuit of Van Dijk, although Chris made the very valid point that maybe this time we should cut out the middle man and sign Hoedt instead, given that we’d probably end up signing him in a couple of years’ time anyway. But if the Reds are insistent still on paying the £60million for Van Dijk, this news is encouraging that the deal could still be on. It was reported yesterday that Southampton are set to hold ???showdown talks’ with Van Dijk this week to try and convince him to stay. However, Virgil still has his heart set on leaving for Anfield. It will be interesting to see whether that Southampton bid for Hoedt is actually submitted, it will be a big step in the right direction if it is. And finally, the final piece of news discussed today was concerning the following quotes from Steve Nicol about Christian Pulisic: “I would suggest that the Jurgen Klopp factor at Liverpool, because clearly he knew all about Pulisic, I’m sure he had some sort of relationship with Pulisic. That would be the one thing other than money that would maybe make Pulisic go from Dortmund to Liverpool – that Klopp connection. If Klopp’s not at Liverpool it’s got no chance of happening.” Steve here gives some great insight to that 4 month relationship Christian and Jurgen had during their brief spell together at Dortmund from February May 2015. Completely makes sense that they would share a really close and special bond after that extremely short amount of time. Yeah, I think we’ve made out thoughts on that quote quite clear. Until tomorrow!