Liputan6.com, Liverpool - Rumor Nabil Fekir akan meninggalkan Olympique Lyon untuk bergabung dengan Liverpool terus terdengar. Fekir meminta Lyon untuk melepasnya ke Liverpool.
Selain The Reds, Bayern Munchen juga dikaitkan dengan gelandang berusia 24 tahun ini. Tawaran Bayern juga tidak kalah menggiurkan untuk Lyon.
Seperti dilansir Mirror, Lyon mulai berpikir untuk menjual Fekir ke klub lain. Hal itu tidak lain karena progres yang lambat dalam pembicaraan antara Liverpool dengan Lyon.
Klub asal Merseyside ini kabarnya belum mencapai kata sepakat soal biaya transfer Fekir. Presiden Lyon, Jean-Michel Aulas, meminta negosiasi diselesaikan sebelum Piala Dunia 2018 bergulir.
Aulas menolak kembali menurunkan harga jual pemain internasional Prancis tersebut. Liverpool sendiri sejauh ini belum bersedia membayar lebih dari 50 juta pound sterling untuk Fekir. Liverpool terus memburu pemain anyar, terbaru, mereka menginginkan Nabil Fekir dari Lyon.
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• Deal to go through on Friday after Liverpool meet valuation • France international follows Fabinho and Naby Keita to Anfield
Liverpool are set to complete the signing of Nabil Fekir on Friday after meeting Lyon’s €60m (£53m) valuation of the France international.
Fekir is on the verge of becoming Jürgen Klopp’s second major transfer of the summer, with Anfield officials having agreed a deal worth an initial €55m to the French club plus €5m in bonuses. The Lyon captain has informed his boyhood club of his preference for Anfield and the deal is expected to be finalised before the 24-year-old heads to the World Cup.
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Jean-Michel Aulas, the Lyon president, told his club’s website on Thursday that the deal was “at a standstill” and unlikely to be concluded before the World Cup. Liverpool, however, continued to press ahead with negotiations and appear to have broken Aulas’s resolve to keep the attacking midfielder until after the World Cup in the hope of starting an auction.
Fekir is due to undergo a Liverpool medical at Clairefontaine, the France national team’s training base, before signing terms on Friday. Didier Deschamps’ side play their final World Cup warm-up game against the USA in Lyon on Saturday and the manager had instructed his squad to settle any outstanding transfer business before flying to Russia.
Liverpool have already signed the defensive midfielder Fabinho from Monaco for £43.7m and Naby Keita will arrive from Red Bull Leipzig this summer for £52.75m. They have also registered interest in Xherdan Shaqiri, who is available for £12m-£13.5m after Stoke City’s relegation from the Premier League.
“The deal is at a standstill, there is no way forward,” Aulas had claimed. “The deal will certainly not be closed during the World Cup and I don’t think there will be any change before the World Cup. We haven’t set a price tag because we haven’t discussed this [Fekir’s transfer] yet.”
Bayern Munich and Atlético Madrid have also been linked with Fekir, who can operate in a number of forward roles and would in effect be Philippe Coutinho’s replacement at Anfield. But his determination to join Klopp’s team and Liverpool’s willingness to go to €60m appears to have altered the stance of the Lyon president.
Liverpool’s summer transfer programme accelerated on Wednesday, with the probability of at least one target being secured inside the next 24 hours increasing dramatically.
While the club’s chances of signing Nabil Fekir ahead of the World Cup became much greater when Lyon’s president accepted that the player only wishes to move to Anfield, progress was made on a deal for Stoke City’s Xherdan Shaqiri.
Jürgen Klopp has identified the need for two new creative additions capable of functioning in a number of attacking positions.
Premier League summer transfer targets 20 show all Premier League summer transfer targets 1/20 Gareth Bale (Real Madrid to Manchester United) AFP/Getty Images 2/20 Fred (Shakhtar Donetsk to Manchester United) Getty Images 3/20 Jorginho (Napoli to Manchester City) Getty 4/20 Toby Alderweireld (Tottenham to Manchester United) Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 5/20 Kylian Mbappe (PSG/Monaco to Manchester City) Getty 6/20 Diogo Dalot (Porto to Manchester United) Getty Images 7/20 Alex Sandro (Juventus to Manchester United) AFP/Getty Images 8/20 Leon Bailey (Bayer Leverkusen to Manchester City) Getty 9/20 Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City to Manchester City) Getty 10/20 Nabil Fekir (Lyon to Liverpool) 11/20 Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich to Chelsea) Getty 12/20 Alisson (Roma to Liverpool/Chelsea/Arsenal) Getty 13/20 Steven N’Zonzi (Sevilla to Arsenal) Getty Images 14/20 Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Borussia Dortmund to Arsenal) City-Press via Getty Images 15/20 Javier Pastore (PSG to West Ham) 16/20 William Carvalho (Sporting Lisbon to Everton) Getty 17/20 Matthijs de Ligt (Ajax to Manchester City) AFP/Getty Images 18/20 Jack Butland (Stoke City to Liverpool) AFP/Getty Images 19/20 Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace to Tottenham) Getty 20/20 Jan Oblak (Atletico Madrid to Chelsea) Getty
Shaqiri’s £12m release clause at Stoke City marks the 26-year-old as low-risk and a bargain, making him more attainable.
Though Fekir is expected to cost a considerably bigger fee in a process with more complications, the midfielder has made it clear to all parties involved – with the help of Jean-Pierre Bernès, the highly influential agent from Marseille – that he does not see his future anywhere other than Merseyside.
The Lyon president is the legendary Jean-Michel Aulas and across Europe, he holds the same sort of status as Daniel Levy, the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur – someone determined and experienced enough to command prime fees for whomever he sells.
Aulas, though, prides himself on the success of Lyon’s youth academy and he believes Fekir’s successor is already in place. Nineteen-year-old Houssem Aouar has made impressive strides in his development over the last 12 months.
Crucially, Fekir did not feature last weekend when France defeated Italy 3-1 in Nice and with manager Didier Deschamps – another of Bernès’s clients – preferring a midfield trio comprising of Corentin Tolisso, Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté, Aulas has realised a pre-World Cup agreement might be the most profitable way of moving forward because ultimately at this stage Liverpool will have to calculate the potential of summer performance into their offer.
While France host United States in Lyon on Saturday, Switzerland take on Japan in Lugano on Friday, leaving Thursday as the last realistic day to complete deals before both nations head to Russia before their opening fixtures against Australia and Brazil respectively.
Both Deschamps and his counterpart in charge of Switzerland, Vladimir Petković, have already made it clear to players subjected to transfer speculation that selection will be influenced by focus on the tournament.
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