Rumour Mongering: Liverpool Want Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi

There’s been a lot of buzz about the young midfielder this week, but is it real or just an agent playing the angles?

It’s only March and Liverpool fans could be forgiven if they’d begun to lose track of all the players the club are meant to be interested in signing this summer, but the rumour mongers never stop throwing names out and this week we’ve got a new one to add to the list.

Leicester City’s 21-year-old holding midfielder Wilfred Ndidi, arguably the most promising, talented young player at that club and already a regular for Nigeria at the international level. If it’s true, it would at least be an intriguing rumour for Liverpool fans to consider.

According to at least one Nigerian journalist with claimed connections to the player and as since picked up by the English tabloids, there’s genuine interest on the Liverpool end—and a resistance to selling, at least for anything less than a massive price, on Leicester’s.

And in this case, massive might take some doing given Ndidi signed with Leicster in January of 2017 from Genk in a £17M deal and a little more than a year since has shown himself not just to be a player of great promise but one ready to contribute at a high level now.

At Liverpool, he would fit in as a six, sitting at the base of midfield—a potential short-term replacement for Emre Can if he leaves for Juventus in the summer and, depending on his fitness status, perhaps the longer-term one for Jordan Henderson as well.

Given his talent, potential, age, ability to at least project as a first team regular—if perhaps not a nailed-on starter from day one—for a top four side, and what Leicester paid for him last January, it could well take a fee in excess of £50M to get them to sell.

That might scare Liverpool off, but it’s worth noting the club have also been linked with Jorginho as a potential big-money signing who would fill a similar role. While the club wouldn’t sign both, in theory at least Ndidi is a reasonable name to link to Anfield.

It’s worth keeping in mind for now, though, that he could also be a name being linked to Anfield because his agent wants to get him an improved deal given he signed a £50k per week deal running through 2022 when he joined Leicester City last January.

Real transfer target or player being linked by an unscrupulous agent, though, either way it’s another name for the list of players Liverpool are meant to be interested in.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com