Liverpool’s hopes of keeping one particular player at Anfield could rest on whether they land a reported transfer target.
The Reds are believed to have taken an interest in Johan Bakayoko (Liverpool Echo), and the PSV Eindhoven forward – who could be available for around £43m (HLN Nieuws) – recently hinted that he’d be open to a new challenge.
According to Eindhovens Dagblad (via Soccernews.nl), the Eredivisie champions have Sepp van den Berg on their wish list, and although they’ve spent most of their existing budget, the prospective €50m (£42.1m) sale of the Belgium winger would enable them to push hard for targets such as the LFC defender.
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Is there scope for Liverpool and PSV to strike a mutually beneficial agreement which’d see Van den Berg and Bakayoko swap clubs in a prospective cash-plus-player deal?
In terms of ensuring an ideal balance throughout Arne Slot’s squad, it could make sense – the Belgian would fill the niche of a natural right-winger alternative (and potential long-term successor) to Mo Salah, while selling the Dutchman would still leave four senior centre-backs at Anfield.
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The Eindhoven-based attacker enjoyed a prolific 2023/24 season in which he scored 14 goals and supplied the same number of assists (Transfermarkt), and many of his underlying performance metrics also compare quite favourably to positional peers across Europe’s top leagues (FBref).
However, Van den Berg has reportedly made a big early impression on his new boss already at Liverpool, and given the injury problems which afflicted our defence last term, it’s not unthinkable that the 22-year-old could get a decent amount of opportunities for the Reds in 2024/25.
Bakayoko could hold the key to whether or not PSV are topped up adequately to push hard for the Reds defender in the final few weeks of the transfer window, and that may leave Richard Hughes with a massive decision to make, one way or the other.
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