A well-loved hit makes its return.
Every transfer season, without fail, Liverpool FC gets linked to Ousmane Dembélé. According to El Nacional, Liverpool are the favourites to sign the 24-year-old French winger from FC Barcelona during the January transfer window.
The Reds have been linked to several attackers due to the AFCON absences, while the French forward has been involved in a contract renewal tug-of-war with the Catalan club over the past few months. The two sides haven’t been able to come to an agreement, which makes the departure of Dembélé, on a transfer this month or on a free in the summer quite likely.
Klopp’s admiration of Dembélé’s dribbling and pace before he even made his switch to Dortmund is of course, well-documented. However, Dembélé’s injury record since making the switch to the Camp Nou has been notoriously terrible, with a popular meme being that he has made his return to training from injury to new managers pretty often. Further attitude issues (video game addiction, being to training) complicate his addition to what has been a relatively trouble-free environment at Liverpool.
And for those of us harbouring hope of a cut-price move, it isn’t likely. Dembélé’s reported contract demands – a €30m (£25.1m) signing bonus, €15m (£12.5m) to be given to his representatives in fees plus €35m (£29.3m) in wages, would make it very unlikely. These demands seem to be driven purely out of spite though, due to Barcelona asking him for a pay cut because of club poverty reasons and then turning around immediately to chase Ferran Torres and Erling Haaland, so you do you, Ousmane.
