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da dobrowin： According to L’Equipe, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid are eyeing a move for Lille’s Nicolas Pepe, with the Italian side said to have submitted a bid close to €90m (£80.5m) for his services already.
What’s the word, then?
Well, the Serie A giants and Diego Simeone’s side are locked in a battle to sign the Ivory Coast international, who enjoyed a standout 2018/19 campaign with Lille.
The 6 ft forward scored 23 goals and recorded 12 assists for the Ligue 1 club last term, projecting him onto the radars of Europe’s top sides.
You can relive Liverpool’s Champions League celebrations in glorious 2D thanks to the guys at 442oons in the video below…
Liverpool, who won the Champions League last season, were said to have already spoken to Lille about the 24-year-old, but they would almost certainly need to break the bank and smash their own transfer record after Inter’s huge offer.
Jurgen Klopp would have to go back on his words from May
Back in May, the former Borussia Dortmund said: “I don’t think this is a team at the moment where we have to spend the big money or whatever. The best way to do it is bring together a group of players, try to develop them all together and then stay together for a while.”
Judging by these words, Klopp ruled out spending any huge amounts of money this summer on his squad. This theory has been backed up by Bleacher Report, claiming John W. Henry is prepared to back Klopp during the transfer window, but the Liverpool boss doesn’t want to spend that much.
The aforementioned report from L’Equipe states that the German is a huge fan of Pepe, but he will almost definitely have to spend big now in order to land the dangerous forward after Inter’s large bid.
If he did go ahead and do so, he would be performing a major U-turn on his words from May which suggested that Liverpool wouldn’t be making any astronomical moves in the market this summer.
Then again, Klopp does have some history here. As reported by BBC Sport, after declaring he’d quit football if transfer fees like Paul Pogba’s became commonplace, Liverpool invested huge sums in Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, leading Klopp to admit to a change of opinion.
Maybe Klopp will change his mind in pursuit of Pepe as well.