Liverpool reportedly have the upper hand on a rival Premier League club for a £50m-valued winger who Arne Slot will know well from his time in Netherlands.
As the January transfer window rapidly approaches, rumours of prospective arrivals at Anfield have surged over the past few days, with players such as Jeremie Frimpong and Omar Marmoush chief among the Reds’ reported targets.
It seems as though it’s not just the Bundesliga to which Richard Hughes is looking in terms of prospective recruitment in 2025, either.
According to CaughtOffside, Liverpool have entered the race to sign Newcastle transfer target Johan Bakayoko and could have an edge on the Magpies due to their superior spending power.
PSV Eindhoven value the winger at €60m (£50m) and are desperate to avoid a January sale, but there’s an acceptance at the Eredivisie club that such a stance could change if any prospective suitor is prepared to meet the 21-year-old’s asking price next month.
Bakayoko was linked with a potential move to Liverpool at the tail end of last season, so it appears that the Reds’ interest in the Belgium international is nothing new.
He’s the latest right-sided attacker to be mentioned as a prospective Anfield target, with reports earlier in the week of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Leroy Sane also being lined up as possible successors to Mo Salah on that flank if the Egyptian doesn’t sign a new contract on Merseyside.
The PSV winger has a modest scoring return of six goals in 21 games so far this season, with his overall record for the club standing at 27 in 106 appearances, a rate of roughly one every four matches – not exactly figures to get the pulses racing.
However, some of Bakayoko’s underlying performance metrics are very impressive. As per FBref, he ranks among the top 1% of positional peers outside Europe’s five main leagues over the past year for progressive carries per game (7.53), the top 2% for non-penalty goals per 90 (0.55) and the top 7% for successful take-ons per match (2.8).
If Federico Chiesa (who could be in the Liverpool squad to face Fulham today) can finally put his injury woes behind him and if Salah signs a new deal, the Reds would appear to be well stocked on the right flank, especially with Ben Doak still to come back from his loan spell at Middlesbrough when it ends in May.
The PSV dynamo doesn’t appear to be someone who Slot desperately needs in his squad, but as ever, the landscape could change depending on player availability, etc.
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