4 hours ago
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Photo by Pau Barrena/Getty Images
We’re going to try not to read too much into a sudden uptick in Florian Wirtz to Liverpool transfer chatter.
If you’d proposed Liverpool as serious contenders in the Florian Wirtz sweepstakes at the start of the month, probably nobody would much have believed you. At the time, Bayern Munich were his likeliest landing spot and Manchester City were reportedly tracking him just in case he chose to leave Germany.
Following last week’s revelations the player and his family had visited Liverpool and not, as had previously been reported, Manchester City to talk about his future rather changed the equation. And today it shifted further, with the BBC saying City’s interest in the player has cooled citing the potential high cost of a deal.
Meanwhile, Sky Germany’s Florian Plettenberg says that Liverpool’s interest in the player is anything but cooling—that in fact the Reds, who want to sign a playmaker this summer, see Wirtz as the ideal target. We remain hesitant to fully embrace the prospect of Wirtz joining the Reds, but there’s certainly some noise.
The question, perhaps, is whether that noise reflects a realistic possibility of a deal getting done or whether this is a case of Wirtz’ camp trying to spin a story that helps to motivate Bayern Munich to get serious about finding a way to convince Leverkusen to sell their star attacking midfielder to an in-league rival.
It’s long been believed Wirtz’ preference would be to stay in Germany and join Bayern, but there have been rumours of growing tension between the Bundesliga giants and Wirtz’ camp in recent weeks and it’s always seemed clear that for their part Leverkusen would prefer to sell the player abroad if possible.
