Liverpool are willing to break the British transfer record in order to sign Jude Bellingham from Real Madrid in the summer, according to reports.
The Reds spent over £400m in the summer transfer window as they looked to back Arne Slot, who won the Premier League title in his first season at Anfield.
It was a change of transfer policy for Liverpool with the Reds splashing out huge fees on proven talent like Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak.
Despite that, Liverpool haven’t reaped the rewards of the big spend with Slot’s side currently 14 points adrift of Premier League leaders Arsenal, who finished second last term.
Liverpool, who face Barnsley in the FA Cup on Monday night, have drawn their last three matches in the Premier League and there have even been recent rumours that Slot could face the sack if things don’t improve.
But the Reds will keep up their big spending over the coming transfer windows with Spanish website Fichajes claiming that the Liverpool board are looking to take a ‘definitive leap’ by signing Bellingham in the summer.
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Liverpool are ‘willing to offer’ €180m (£156m) for the England international with the Reds hierarchy believing that they ‘need a generational leader to dominate the midfield for the next decade’.
Real Madrid are ‘not considering a departure’ but Liverpool’s transfer offer is ‘not a mere tentative move, but an offensive designed to overcome any resistance and place the English club at the forefront of the transfer market’.
The report adds: ‘Florentino Pérez shares that view. In the Bernabéu offices, it’s believed that Jude Bellingham will define an era and that his sporting value far outweighs any financial offer, even one of €180 million .
‘Liverpool FC knows that convincing Real Madrid is extremely difficult. Even so, they are confident that a record-breaking offer could, at the very least, prompt some internal reflection.’
There have been rumours that Alonso could face the sack at the Bernabeu unless he can turn things around with Real Madrid trailing Barcelona in La Liga and losing to the Catalan giants in the Spanish Super Cup on Sunday.
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When asked last week about Alonso’s future, Bellingham said: “It’s not really in my realm of decision-making as a player. What I can say as a player, is that we’re all behind him. We have to be as one, players, staff the manager, it’s a bad moment, but I think we have to look at it from a different perspective too.
“We’re in January, second in the league, four points off top, in the top eight in the Champions League. It’s not a disaster by any means.
“At Real Madrid, there is a tendency for things to get a bit over-exaggerated in the bad moments. But that’s what we’re here for, we enjoy it, but hopefully we get a win tomorrow. The decisions that are made are well above my head.”
Bellingham also insisted that there were no concerns over Vinicius Junior’s behaviour after rumours he could leave Real Madrid.
The Real Madrid midfielder added on his team-mate: “In tough moments, a lot of the problems are fabricated, or exaggerated, but we know inside what is happening. Stories from outside are not helpful because they are misleading to the fans, but like I said before, with Vinicius there is no issue. There’s no bad influence on anything productive we’re trying to do.
“If I felt that was the case, I would pull him aside and tell him. But Vinicius is on a bit of a blank run in front of goal, but there’s no issue, and with the manager, we’re all 100% behind him.”
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