OK, it’s only February, but already the pace of the transfer gossip is picking up to the point I feel I need to try to make some sense of it in my usual thread. As usual, I try to include only players who have been more or less credibly linked with us; Portuguese and Italian newspapers are mostly disregarded as sources.
Goalkeepers:
Alisson (AS Roma, asking price £70M)
Oblak (Atletico Madrid, €100M release clause)
Butland (Stoke)
Centre-backs:
De Vrij (Lazio, free)
Full-backs:
We don’t seem to be in the market for one, for once
Central midfielders:
Ndidi (Leicester)
Wanyama (Spurs)
Doucoure (Watford)
Milinkovic-Savic (Lazio, asking £70M+)
Jorginho (Napoli)
Attacking midfielders/wingers:
Lemar (Monaco, £90M asking price)
Pulisic (Dortmund, £80M+)
Maddison (Norwich)
Centre-forwards:
Werner (Leipzig)
I think Real Madrid players should be in a separate category. If any of Isco, Ascensio, Keylor Navas etc become available, I think there will be a long line of suitors and LFC probably among them - but their availability depends solely on Madrid’s internal politics and their own summer targets. So unlike most of the others on this list, Real players are not really “on the market,” but things could change quickly, so you can’t rule them out either.
Did I forget anyone?
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UPD: I added the color-coding like last summer, to show my very preliminary and imprecise assessment of whether the player in question would be an immediate improvement over the current LFC players in his position. Remember, it refers to current level, not potential. Red for instant improvement, orange for competitive, yellow for squad player, green for youth player.
