Rumour Mongering: Nabil Fekir Picks Liverpool Over Chelsea

French reports have Fekir on the verge of a Liverpool move—and say he turned down a chance to go to Chelsea instead.

On the Liverpool side of things, while there has been no confirmation of the club moving for Lyon’s Nabil Fekir, there has also been no outright denial of the recent spate of links with the French club’s 24-year-old attacking star and homegrown captain.

In France in recent days, though, multiple reliable outlets have, seemingly independently, come to the conclusion Fekir to Liverpool is all but done . It’s tempting to take them at face value—and not just because Fekir is a player who would improve Liverpool.

Following last summer’s failure to sign Virgil van Dijk, the club have kept quiet on potential incomings. Yet in the cases of Naby Keïta, Mohamed Salah, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and then again Van Dijk in January, Liverpool keeping quiet hasn’t meant no news.

Instead, it’s meant that the only news—at least in the early stages—comes from those with contact with the player and the selling club. And, in this case, there’s a great deal of noise—seemingly reliable noise—about Fekir to Liverpool coming out of France.

After RMC and Canal+ kicked off the week with reports of a nearly done deal, individual journalists have added fuel to the fire, and today there are claims Fekir has already met with Klopp—and that the Liverpool manager convinced him to turn down Chelsea.

Negotiations are said to be at a late stage, a fee of around €70M is said to have been agreed in principle between the two clubs—though as yet no formal bid has been made—and while it isn’t a sure thing yet, it looks like it could become a sure thing in short order.

That is, at least, assuming that as was the case in some of the club’s other recent deals we can believe what’s coming from journalists with ties to Lyon and the Fekir camp—and there’s always a chance in that kind of situation that something else is going on.

It’s not unheard of for clubs and players to leak to the press when they want to get a deal done, a selling club looking to spark a bidding war or a player looking to force a move or get himself an improved deal, and so there’s a chance this isn’t what it appears.

If it is what it appears to be, though—Nabil Fekir to Liverpool in a €70M deal—it’s exciting news, and along with the arrival of Keïta over the summer it means next season’s Liverpool side will be far more dangerous even than the current edition.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com