It’s the international break, and with club football on hold the news is sparse, leading to a vacuum that can realistically only be filled by one thing. And that thing is transfer rumours, for better or worse.
On the Liverpool front, we’ve seen an uptick in chatter about a potential signing of Bournemouth forward Antoine Semenyo. We’ve also seen an uptick in chatter about maybe missing out on Marc Guéhi, with Bayern Munich now being linked with the Crystal Palace centre half.
With the latter in mind, and with Liverpool still highly uncertain about Ibrahima Konaté’s future (and Joe Gomez’ injury record and with Giovanni Leoni currently out for the season with a torn ACL), an uptick in chatter about a potential centre half signing seems due.
Queue the sketchier corners of the rumour mongering internet—your CuaghtOffsides and YardBarkers and the like—bringing RB Leipzig 22-year-old French centre half Castello Lukeba to the speculative table.
Lukeba has perhaps most heavily been linked with Manchester United of late and is said to have a €90M release clause but, perhaps more palatably, a €60M asking price. Given the Reds paid about half that for Leoni—both younger and more highly regarded—last summer, it still seems high.
There’s also said to be Newcastle, Chelsea, and Real Madrid interest. For the time being, then, this seems like a player or agent who wants to drum up interest—and it’s more likely any actual interest is from the likes of United and Newcastle than Liverpool, Chelsea, and Madrid.
That’s assuming, of course, that there’s anything even vaguely resembling truth underpinning the rumour in the first place. Linking the reds with good young defenders, though, does seem an obvious move regardless.