Lyon President Aulas Keeps Nabil Fekir Transfer Saga (Just Barely) Alive

The deal is almost certainly dead, but Lyon’s president just can’t stop talking about Fekir’s future.

Everybody’s pretty sure the whole Nabil Fekir to Liverpool thing is off. Like really off. Like not happening this or any other summer ever. Still, when a player seems like such a perfect fit—worrying knee issues aside, natch—it’s hard to let go.

And along with the Twitter in the know types who have nothing to lose by guessing a deal could still be on and lots of followers to gain on the 0.1% chance it actually is still on, we’ve got Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas saying things.

Saying lots of things. About Fekir and the future and whether they’ll sell. Which has some people thinking a deal must still be on but at this point could also just mean Jean-Michel Aulas really likes to hear the sound of his own voice.

“I am not afraid of anything,” he told journalists in France today when pressed about the possibility Lyon could yet lose a couple of players—and most notably Nabil Fekir—before the close of the English transfer window on August ninth.

“If they leave, that means we have received the number we want. We will do everything we can for them not to, but the week before the 9th of August will be a bit of a storm, [but it will be] difficult for Nabil to find a genuinely better club.”

Given he explicitly references the close of the transfer window for Premier League clubs and not for Lyon is hard to get past—and to try to draw conclusions from. Conclusions like that there must be Premier League clubs still after Fekir.

Liverpool, though, we can feel fairly certain at the very least wouldn’t be back for Fekir at the price the two sides previously agreed and that would match Aulas’ “number” in order to sell him. Which rather undercuts any idea a deal’s still on.

That and the part where every journalist with half an in at Liverpool Football Club has been saying for at least a week now that the deal really, really isn’t going to be back on. Still, we doubt this is the last we’ll hear from Aulas on the matter.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com