Liverpool have submitted a revised offer to Bayer Leverkusen for Florian Wirtz of £113million as talks continue between the clubs.
The package guarantees Leverkusen £100million with £13million extra coming in add-ons. It is short of the £126million (€150million) the Bundesliga side have been seeking. Negotiations are continuing but as it stands Liverpool are unwilling to meet the German club’s full asking price.
The deal proposed by Liverpool would smash their transfer record of £85million, which they committed to pay for Darwin Núñez in the summer of 2022. It also offers Leverkusen a huge certain sum, with almost 90 per cent of the figure independent of the usual add-ons that are frequently based on appearances and success.
Discussions are clearly fluid and the original offer was for £109million, although it is unclear how much of that was guaranteed. Wirtz is with the Germany squad before Sunday’s third-place Nations League play-off with France in Stuttgart.
He wants to move to England, having rebuffed overtures from Bayern Munich and Manchester City, who are now turning their attention to the Lyon star Rayan Cherki, 21, who was also on Liverpool’s shortlist before it emerged they were Wirtz’s preference.Cherki, who scored in the 5-4 defeat by Spain on Wednesday, is expected to join City once France’s Nations League campaign is overGETTYLiverpool formally made contact with Leverkusen two weeks ago over their desire to sign Wirtz, 22, who is viewed as one of the best attacking midfielders in the world.The two clubs had already been in talks over Jeremie Frimpong, who has since moved to Anfield in a deal worth £29.5million after a release clause was triggered in the contract of the Netherlands international. Liverpool are also in contact with Bournemouth over left back Milos Kerkez, who missed Hungary’s defeat by Sweden on Friday night due to a minor injury. Kerkez is rated at £45million by the south coast club and the Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes, who joined the club from Bournemouth last summer, has been seeking to negotiate that figure down.If you often open multiple tabs and struggle to keep track of them, Tabs Reminder is the solution you need. Tabs Reminder lets you set reminders for tabs so you can close them and get notified about them later. Never lose track of important tabs again with Tabs Reminder!
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