Manchester City are understood to be leading the race for Liverpool forward Cody Gakpo, with Tottenham Hotspur now turning their attention elsewhere after shifting focus to Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye.<\/p>\n
Gakpo had first appeared on Tottenham’s list of targets as Roberto De Zerbi’s side looked to add another Premier League player at a heavily inflated price. City then entered the picture and, according to the current reporting, now have the advantage over Spurs.<\/p>\n
The Netherlands international has reportedly given the green light to a move to City because of concerns over limited opportunities once Bradley Barcola arrives. The Athletic say talks are centred on a fee close to Liverpool’s asking price of $115.2 million (\u00a385 million), with the clubs aiming to settle matters before Tuesday’s transfer deadline. No player has moved directly between the two modern rivals since Raheem Sterling’s controversial transfer in 2015.<\/p>\n
If completed at that level, the move would make Gakpo the most expensive Dutch player in history, overtaking Frenkie de Jong’s 2019 switch from Ajax to Barcelona, which was worth about $98 million at the time.<\/p>\n
Spurs’ change of direction has pushed Ndiaye to the forefront. The Everton forward, who was also said to have attracted interest from Manchester City in the wider summer carousel of Premier League wingers with modest goal returns, is expected to join Tottenham. Richarlison, in a separate deal, would return to Everton.<\/p>\n
Paul Joyce of The Times reports that Spurs will pay $81.3 million (\u00a360 million) for Ndiaye and receive $47.5 million (\u00a335 million) for Richarlison. That arrangement would suit both clubs in accounting terms, with Everton spending less than they receive and Tottenham able to spread Ndiaye’s cost across the length of his contract while booking the full Richarlison fee this year.<\/p>\n
For Liverpool, the question is whether there is enough time to replace a winger who scored seven league goals last season. Gakpo has also begun the campaign well, contributing a goal and an assist in the first two weekends. After the 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest, Virgil van Dijk made his view clear: \u201cHe\u2019s a quality player,\u201d Virgil van Dijk told assembled reporters after Saturday\u2019s 2\u20132 draw with Nottingham Forest . \u201cI think we should keep quality players. Let\u2019s see what the next few days bring. I want him to stay not only because he\u2019s a quality player but also because he\u2019s a friend of mine. He\u2019s very important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
City lead for Gakpo as Tottenham pivot to Ndiaye and Liverpool weigh a late sale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,238,187],"tags":[59,180,182],"class_list":["post-18842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-manchester-city","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-featured","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}