Jarell Quansah and Marcus Rashford
Jarell Quansah and Marcus Rashford
Having raided Bayer Leverkusen for two of their best players, Liverpool now look set to use the Bundesliga club to offset some of the £150million they'll have forked out this summer.
Florian Wirtz's imminent Liverpool arrival will see him reunite with Jeremie Frimpong, with the pair swapping the BayArena for Anfield. The two clubs will likely have had open dialogue for a number of months given the substantial transfer fees involved, and so it's perhaps not exactly a coincidence they now look set to thrash out yet another deal.
As much as it may be painful to admit, Liverpool's record when it comes to selling players to offset the money spent in the market is mightily impressive. Jarell Quansah may be a recognisable name to most football fans given his time in the Liverpool first team, but selling a third-choice centre-back who has made just 30 Premier League appearances for a reported €40m (£35m) is still very good business.
It would be naive to think that Quansah's name hadn't been mentioned during talks between Bayer Leverkusen and Liverpool over Frimpong and Wirtz. Should the reported £35m deal materialise, Liverpool will have addressed a problem in their starting XI following the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold, using their existing relationship with a club to their advantage.
And that's something Manchester United could look to do this summer.
A new striker is a must at Old Trafford this summer, with Napoli ace Victor Osimhen one of the names regularly being touted as a target.
Matheus Cunha's £62.5m arrival and the possible signing of Bryan Mbeumo for a similar fee means United will need to sell before they can buy a new striker.
It's nigh-on impossible to predict how much it would take to sign Osimhen given the range of reported price tags, but selling an asset like Alejandro Garnacho - who has been told he is free to leave the club if an acceptable offer arrives - would go a long way to funding a deal.
Napoli's interest in Garnacho is no secret, with the Serie A champions tabling a £40m bid for the forward in the mid-season transfer window. United are understood to be holding out for a higher fee than was offered in January, and should Napoli come calling again they could do a lot worse than to mention Osimhen's name in any discussions.
If United can offload a player who has been told he is free to leave and address their biggest problem while dealing with the same club it would be a job well done.
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