Rumour Mongering: Matthijs de Ligt to Liverpool Intensifies

It may amount to nothing—or nothing more than De Ligt’s agent at work—but there’s a lot of noise out there today.

For much of the past season, Matthijs de Ligt has been considered a lock to join Barcelona in the summer, but with the season having been ended for some weeks now and his move not yet done, the rumour mongers have had to reach for reasons why.

Are the player and his agent demanding more money? Is Ajax trying to spark a bidding war? Has another club turned the 19-year-old’s head? At one point or another over the past few weeks, it’s been all of those things stopping a move to Barca being done.

And for much of the time, it’s been Liverpool cast as the boogeyman out to steal Barca’s top defensive target. Which brings us today, and Sport Bild—a not bad source for German-adjacent rumours—claiming Jürgen Klopp has made a personal request.

Klopp, they say, wants De Ligt and has made a special request of Liverpool’s upper management to find a way to fit him into this summer’s transfer plans. They claim the other contenders, along with Barcelona, are PSG and Manchesters City and United.

Meanwhile, to further complicate matters, German football expert—and writer of Klopp bio Bring the Noise—Raphael Honigstein says he has now heard from two different clubs that say De Ligt’s representatives have told them that they are his top choice.

Which leaves us wondering if we can trust anything currently out there about De Ligt or if it’s all just noise being put out by agent Mino Raiola as he seeks the best deal for his client—not to mention a lucrative cut of the eventual transfer deal for himself.

In the end, we remain dubious of the idea of De Ligt ending up at Liverpool—as good as he is, his transfer is likely to at least not be great value and the club have other needs—but until he makes up his mind it’s likely the stories will keep coming.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com