Having been given encouragement by the player and believing a compromise with Paris Saint-Germain over the fee is possible, Liverpool are set to make an opening bid of around £100M (€118M) for the 23-year-old French international winger Bradley Barcola, with the goal of making him the club’s statement of intent signing this summer.
That’s the latest on this developing transfer saga, which clicked into high gear over the weekend with reports out of France suggesting Barcola was now pushing for an exit
from PSG and Liverpool were his preferred destination. Those reports were soon followed by claims that for the first time PSG would be willing to sell—albeit for the right price, naturally.
In a summer transfer market having been hit by an inflationary shock at the top end when Manchester City and Chelsea signed Elliott Anderson and Morgan Rodgers in deals each worth around £120M, though, the right price from PSG’s point of view could prove difficult for Liverpool to sign off on.
There have been some suggestions PSG could be seeking as much as £145M (€170M), a fee the Reds would not be willing to match, but both The Guardian’s Andy Hunter and The Times’ Paul Joyce believe they will at least try to find a compromise, and with Barcola on a shorter contract than either Anderson or Rodgers and not counting as homegrown they see PSG’s top end valuation as unrealistic.
Unrealistic or not, Barcola does have two years left on his PSG contract, and while he has signalled he will not sign a new deal, they could hold on to him for at least one more season before selling next summer—though at that stage, with just a year left, his value would be considerably less at that stage.
If Barcola does want out and has informed PSG there’s no chance he will sign a new deal, now is the summer the French club can still demand a considerable fee. Pegging his value to that of a pair of English players swapped between English clubs, though—with both on longer contracts to boot—does seem exceptionally optimistic on their part.
