Liverpool fans could be treated to the sight of a completely new-look midfield trio if Jorg Schmadtke has his way in the coming weeks.
Alexis Mac Allister looks close to an announcement, though the Reds could also be set to push another option toward completion if one exclusive discussion with Tobi Altschäffl is to be taken as gospel.
“I don’t think he’s a top, top priority, a No.1, but I think this is a deal which is easier than the big deals like… I don’t want to compare him to anyone like Kylian Mbappe,” the SportBILD journalist informed Empire of the Kop.
“It’s only about potentially discussing valuation, like is he €30m, or €35 or €40m.
“Kone is more likely because he’s not going to have a high transfer fee. Maybe at the end its €30m plus €5m bonus – something like that. This could go fast if Liverpool are pushing.”
Assuming that we could keep the asking price down to the €30m (£25m), it could represent a potentially superb, not to mention cheap, bit of business to supplement the addition of a World Cup winner in the Brighton star.
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Signing Manu Kone for £25-34m is a no-brainer
Even should the fee rise to €40m (£34.3m), it still represents potentially great value for money and there’s plenty of opportunity for development with the player 22.
As we understand, the main concern around JKone is his level of consistency, though, assuming that there are no further worries around his character, we’d back Jurgen Klopp to make a big difference there.
Assuming reports are correct on Mac Allister costing less than £70m this summer (Fabrizio Romano), it means we’ve hit our minimum target of two new midfielders for potentially less than £100m – a remarkable achievement given the scale of the decline in the middle of the park.