Liverpool have held secret meetings with Barcelona over a deal for Philippe Coutinho and want £137m for their talisman.
That"s the blockbuster claim of Daily Record and Sunday Times journalist Duncan Castles.
Speaking on The Transfer Window podcast, he said: "Coutinho is being priced at €150m (£137) by Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund are asking pretty much the same for Ousmane Dembele.
"Barcelona are already in a very difficult place after losing Neymar against their will and losing to Real Madrid (in the Super Cup) intensifies that problem.
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"In the background to this, while Liverpool were briefing the press that there had only been one bid from Barcelona, the €80 (£72m) bid, and that Barcelona had not come back and made any offers to them or further discussions, the reality was Liverpool were speaking to Barcelona and negotiating a deal and had told Barcelona the price they were looking for was €150m (£137m).”
Virgil van Dijk will be a Liverpool player by Thursday next week.
That"s the verdict of former Fleet Street journalist and Transfer Window podcast guest Ian McGarry.
"The whole thing of Van Dijk not for sale is a holding tactic,” McGarry said.
"1) To get more money for the player out of the buying club, in this case Liverpool and 2) waiting until confirming a replacement to take over from Van Dijk.
"By this time next week (Thursday) Van Dijk will already be given a squad number by Liverpool and that"s where he"ll be playing his football this season.”
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp will have £160m to spend on Van Dijk and Naby Keita if and when they sell Coutinho to Barcelona.
"They were willing to spend £60m on Naby Keita so presumably there's money budgeted there,” Gabriele Marcotti explained on The Times' The Game podcast.
"If Coutinho goes and I assume it will be a little north of £100m suddenly you have £160m to spend if you're smart and if you're prepared.
"And they should have been preparing for post-Coutinho from the minute it became obvious that Neymar was gonna go to PSG.
"If they are prepared they can come out stronger than they are because [Mohamed] Salah, [Sadio] Mane, [Roberto] Firmino and [Adam] Lallana when he's back from injury plus [Dominic] Solanke and [Daniel] Sturridge is a pretty potent attacking force.
"So if you can add a Keita or a Keita type to the midfield and upgrade the defence possibly with Van Dijk it's not so bad.”
