Manchester City ask Liverpool for Cody Gakpo. Half of such requests led to a sale.
Manchester City opened talks with Liverpool over Cody Gakpo on Saturday night. The transfer window shuts at 23:00 on Tuesday.
What happened
Manchester City open talks with Liverpool to sign Cody Gakpo, with personal terms also under discussion and Liverpool considering their position given how late the contact has come.
Gakpo is a Netherlands international. One source told Sky Sports News the move was going City’s way, even though Tottenham had wanted him earlier in the summer. Tottenham then signed Savio and Omar Marmoush instead.
City clearly need a winger. They let Savio and Marmoush leave for Tottenham this month, and had no winger on the bench at Selhurst Park on Friday. Jack Grealish missed that game against Palace, and Everton and Sunderland want him.
Liverpool are close to signing Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain for £106m, rising to £123m. After Saturday’s draw with Nottingham Forest, in which Gakpo set up Alexander Isak’s goal, Andoni Iraola would not say whether Gakpo will stay.
The window closes at 23:00 BST on Tuesday . It opened on . Nothing in the reports suggests Liverpool had put Gakpo up for sale. The approach, the player’s interest and the question of a replacement all came in the same weekend.
Sources: Sky Sports, Premier League
The Pattern
We looked for times since 2013 when a Premier League club asked another Premier League club for a first-choice attacker who was under contract and not for sale. We checked whether the selling club sold him to the bidder before that window closed. Players in the last year of a contract, players already for sale and moves abroad are left out. We found nine, and the eight most recent are below.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
History is split evenly, but the details point to Liverpool saying no. City asked at the weekend, for a player who has not asked to leave, and a replacement can hardly be found before Tuesday night. Arsenal in 2017 and Aston Villa in refused for exactly those reasons. Liverpool are also spending up to £123m on Barcola for the same position, which lowers their need for a fee.
The doubt is that half of the past approaches did end in a sale, and City have done this twice before against Premier League clubs, with Sterling and Grealish. In every past sale the player had made his wishes known. If Gakpo agrees personal terms and says in public before Tuesday afternoon that he wants to go, the picture changes.
A statement from Gakpo, or a replacement arriving at Anfield, would decide it. A higher bid on its own would probably not.
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