Newcastle are said to be holding out for £130M and a deadline day megadeal seems likely.
Liverpool will head into transfer deadline day still seeking to make two signings as they continue to chase Newcastle star striker Alexander Isak and Crystal Palace centre half Marc Guéhi, and there is confidence that both deals can and will be completed despite how late in the window things have been left.
On the Isak front, following Newcastle’s signing of Nick Woltemade from Stuttgart earlier in the week the widespread belief was that an Isak sale would now be sanctioned—for the right price. Currently, reports from the Liverpool side of the aisle have the Reds ready tooffer £120M. From the Newcastle side, £130M is said to be the target.
Liverpool previously saw a bid of £110M rejected instantly by Newcastle, while the chatter at the start of the summer had them setting an £150M valuation of the player. That number was never reliably corroborated and Liverpool have consistently signalled that it would far exceed their own valuation of the player.
Still, it seems certain that when everything is said and done—if everything gets done in the end, which isn’t certain even if the widespread assumption at this stage is that a deal will go through—Isak’s fee will end up a British transfer record.
It might not be the ideal outcome for Newcastle, but the ideal outcome for Newcastle would have been to keep the player, and that has seemed nigh on impossible for some time now. Keeping Isak appears impossible, and if the hope had been for another serious suitor to arrive and a bidding war to commence, that appears not to have happened.
Isak, it is said, only wants Liverpool. Has for some time now. And Liverpool are willing to pay a British record fee to secure the 25-year-old’s services. Time is running out, but it appears the only real uncertainty is over precisely where the two sides will meet in a compromise that will finally end this long-running transfer saga.
Category: General Sports
