Liverpool transfer news - Curtis Jones update, Jarell Quansah clue and £14.7m release clause
Today's Liverpool FC transfer news column takes in the latest updates with Reds on course to complete first sale of the summer
Well, it looks like it's over. Whatever your opinion is on Curtis Jones - and, let's be honest, we've all had plenty of time to form one - it will be a sad day when the final Scouser in Liverpool's team departs the club he joined at the age of nine.
That day could be today (Aug 19). Fabrizio Romano wheeled out the obligatory 'here we go' in an announcement on X (Twitter) just after lunchtime, and various reports in Italy and further afield have followed in stating that Inter have agreed a €30m initial fee for the 25-year-old midfielder with €4m to €5m in add-ons (£30m + £3.4m to £4.3m), with Jones having already committed to joining the Italian champions.
We'll take a closer look at where that deal is up to and when it could realistically be announced, before assessing what could lie ahead for Liverpool's midfield with less than two weeks until the transfer window shuts.
Another piece of business down the M6 could have repercussions on Jarell Quansah and any potential future Liverpool return, while another South American whizzkid has been linked as the Reds increasingly look to go to source in their hunt for the game's most promising players.
At this stage of the summer, it's easy to miss emerging stories with new headlines constantly replacing old ones. As ever, though, we'll have you covered with everything you need to know from the transfer market.
Join us once again as we round up all the latest gossip and rumours in the Liverpool transfer news column....
Jones exit and the future of Liverpool's midfield
It says a great deal about Curtis Jones' Liverpool career that despite not exactly being a key player, his inevitable departure has provoked a sense of dread.
This is in no small part due to the Reds' obvious lack of depth in multiple areas of the field where Jones has provided valuable cover in recent months, but it also speaks to Jones' identity as a Liverpool player.
When he broke through into the fringes of Jurgen Klopp's first great team as a teenager, Jones was hailed like few other academy products had been over the last two decades.
Though Klopp's taming of Jones' maverick instincts was hailed as the tricky attacking midfielder/winger became an industrious and press-resistant No. 8, the lad from Toxteth never quite reached the potential at Liverpool that he possessed in spades.
In spite of that, Jones made himself an indispensable player - covering three positions in the midfield and consistently challenging for his place, before acting as a strong auxiliary right-back in Arne Slot's final season at the club.
That now looks to have been Jones' final season at Liverpool too, though, with Fabrizio Romano announcing a breakthrough in his transfer to Inter with his typical 'here we go' seal of authenticity.
Romano revealed that a medical is already "being planned" for Jones, while the original Italian transfer expert - Gianluca Di Marzio - followed up with details on the structure of the fee Romano reported as €35m (£34.3m).
According to Di Marzio, the transfer fee will comprise of €30m up front with €4-5m in add-ons (£30m + £3.4m to £4.3m). La Gazzetta dello Sport have gone with €30m+€5m, while going further in claiming that an "official announcement is expected in the next few hours".
The ECHO, along with James Pearce at The Athletic, understand that a deal is believed to be within sight although no final agreement has been reached yet.
Nevertheless, Jones' exit is now the expected outcome - which raises questions about how Liverpool replace the 25-year-old ahead of the new season.
As covered in yesterday's column, journalist David Lynch (via Anfield Index) has revealed that, based on his information, there is "close to zero chance" of the Reds replacing Jones in the transfer market, with 19-year-old Trey Nyoni set to be given the opportunity as Liverpool's fourth-choice central midfielder.
There is also Wataru Endo to provide a more defence-focused alternative within the squad, while James McConnell's proposed loan move to Preston North End is currently "on hold" - perhaps with a view to keeping the 21-year-old around as an additional homegrown option.
Stefan Bajcetic is unlikely to be in contention after having trained on a separate programme throughout pre-season and in recent days having attracted the interest of LaLiga side Getafe.
Further back, new centre-back loanee Ronald Araujo played six games at right-back for Barcelona last season and is considered a strong one-v-one defender in wide areas.
Jeremy Jacquet and Joe Gomez, when fit, are both capable of covering Jeremie Frimpong in Conor Bradley's absence, while natural right-back Calvin Ramsay is still at the club despite talk of a possible loan move.
In short, Liverpool seem to believe they have the resources to avoid dipping into the transfer market again for a midfielder, though this could well be influenced by the difficulty of replacing a homegrown player when the Reds are already facing the prospect of omitting multiple non-homegrown players from their Champions League squad to comply with UEFA regulations.
Perhaps homegrown alternatives on the market - like Adam Wharton, who generated renewed speculation of a Liverpool move after successfully winning an eBay auction for a signed Gerrard shirt from Istanbul 2005 - have been deemed either too expensive or the wrong profile for Andoni Iraola.
Either way, not directly replacing Jones with a new player would undeniably be a risk given the levels shown by Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch last season and the inexperience of Nyoni.
Some hope for the more nervous among you might come in the form of Vinny O'Connor's assessment for Sky Sports, who recently claimed "you would expect a replacement to be brought in" if Jones left.
Currently, though, there are scant options available on the market at a price point you'd wager Liverpool would want to do business at, and it's entirely possible the Reds are once again left weaker in a key area by the end of the summer.
Liverpool set to get away with Quansah blunder
The most obvious example of Liverpool's squad being left weaker the season after winning their 20th league title was the Marc Guehi farce, which ended with the England international centre-back joining Manchester City in January for a lower fee than Liverpool initially agreed with Crystal Palace.
Guehi's wage demands come January were reportedly higher than the Reds were prepared to spend, and there was little that could be done about Steve Parish's last-minute 180 on deadline day last summer while Guehi was undergoing his medical to join Liverpool.
Instead, the real farcical decision was to allow Jarell Quansah to leave when a deal for Guehi was far from completion. In Quansah, Liverpool let one of the most promising defenders in the Premier League walk out of the door for a fee that now looks like an absolute bargain, only to fail to replace him and spend most of the season walking a fitness tightrope with just two senior (and often out-of-form) centre-backs.
One of the most baffling elements of the deal was the fact that Liverpool pre-negotiated a contract for Quansah to return to the club if the Reds activate his buy-back clause either this summer or next - indicating that such an outcome was a strong possibility and raising questions about how exactly his transfer to Leverkusen would benefit Liverpool financially.
With the Reds having signed Jeremy Jacquet, Giovanni Leoni returning to fitness and the loan for Araujo later agreed, Quansah's strong form in Germany was overlooked this summer with his buy-back fee believed to decrease in value next year.
That decision looked set to backfire spectacularly last week, when Arsenal were widely and credibly reported to be in discussions for Quansah just a year after the 23-year-old left Anfield (Sky Sports, The Athletic).
But Sky Sports now report that Arsenal are "in advanced talks" for Aston Villa's Ezri Konsa, a player who favours Quansah's right side and, like his younger counterpart, can also provide cover at right-back.
Arsenal had been linked with Konsa for several weeks before this update, so perhaps the public interest in Quansah was an attempt to drive Villa's valuation down - the Gunners having been unwilling to meet their £60m price tag.
Either way, the embarrassing outcome of Quansah ending up at a Premier League rival just a year after leaving the club looks to have been avoided for now, leaving open the possibility that the Warrington native still returns to Liverpool in a future window.
Liverpool 'courting' Argentine talent Aranda
After Liverpool secured an agreement for Colombian attacking midfielder Samuel Martinez earlier in the summer, who will link up with his new teammates a year from now, another young South American prospect has been linked with the Reds.
El Crack Deportivo have reported that Liverpool and a host of other clubs are "courting the services of" 19-year-old Tomas Aranda, an attacking midfielder and left winger for Boca Juniors.
Aranda has a $20m (£14.7m) release clause at Boca and, despite only managing one goal and three assists from 19 games in Argentina this season, is considered by club president Juan Roman Riquelme - a legend of Aranda's position - to be a "great gem".
Riquelme, according to the report, "doesn't want to know" when it comes to the prospect of losing Aranda. But a growing number of suitors are reportedly emerging for the youngster.
Chelsea are given headline status in this report, as in a corroborating report from El Intransigente. But Liverpool are also said to be "following" Aranda "closely", as are Inter, Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, the City Group, Parma and Como, plus Brazilian sides Corinthians and Sao Paulo.
While Boca don't want to lose their hot prospect, El Intransigente report that "a bid close to the [release] clause could force the club to make a difficult decision."
With Liverpool increasingly looking to cut out middleman clubs in recent years in the pursuit of football's top emerging talents - see Martinez, Mor Talla Ndiaye, Ifeanyi Ndukwe and arguably Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni - we can expect to see more of these kinds of deals in future.
Liverpool have also been linked with Tijuana sensation Gilberto Mora, the 17-year-old playmaker who impressed at the World Cup for Mexico this summer.
Other reports today
- Various outlets have reported that Ifeanyi Ndukwe is set to join LaLiga side Levante on a season-long loan, an exciting move for the Austria Vienna academy graduate who impressed at centre-back for Liverpool in pre-season. By joining a team in a Band 1 domestic league, Ndukwe can begin to rack up points faster to secure his eligibility for a UK work permit in post-Brexit regulations. Paul Gorst has the full story - with the move not yet confirmed but Levante "understood to be at the front of the queue as things stand."
- Spurs are planning to sign three attackers before the window closes, according to Sky Sports, with Cody Gakpo among their top targets. Along with the widely-reported interest in Gakpo and Savinho for the opposite wing, Spurs are said to want a centre-forward to round out the pack, with Omar Marmoush on the list. Pedro Neto is seen as an alternative if Spurs don't land Gakpo, with the north London club said to be "waiting for Liverpool to sign Bradley Barcola and - potentially - his Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Ibrahim Mbaye before they bid for Gakpo on top of Savinho."
- And Darwin Nunez is set for a loan move to Al Diriyah from fellow Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal, after being frozen out at last season's league runners-up. Nunez had been expected to join Mohamed Salah at Trabzonspor but that move broke down, meaning Nunez will stay in the Pro League for at least one more year. Sacha Tavolieri's tweet (above) breaks down the complicated story, with Al Diriyah's commitment to cover 75% of Nunez's wages perhaps proving decisive.
Nonsense of the day
Endrick to Liverpool is a transfer rumour that - on the face of it, at least - makes a lot more sense than the stories that usually find themselves plonked unceremoniously into this section of the column.
Liverpool need more options at right wing and through the middle of their attack, and Endrick ticks both of those boxes while boasting top-level experience and plenty of potential.
However, the story behind this particular rumour - which, in a development which is rarely ever promising, took quite some digging to find - is unfortunately complete nonsense.
I first came across the story on Madrid Universal, which is - no prizes for guessing this - a Real Madrid fan site which aggregates stories about Real Madrid players and targets.
Citing Mundo Deportivo, the report explains how Endrick finds himself on the sidelines in Madrid due to the levels of competition within their squad and the recent signings of Yan Diomande and Carlos Espi, with Liverpool having registered interest in either a €65m (£55.7m) permanent move or a loan deal.
Mundo Deportivo tell much the same story, Liverpool wanting Endrick to replace Salah. They, however, cite "the English press, specifically Livescore."
Turns out Livescore's article is a republished article from Anfield Watch, citing a typically-unsourced piece from nonsense section favourites Fichajes.
This absolute maze of a rumour is almost enough for an inclusion by itself, but Fichajes are only just getting started. According to the Spanish outlet, "Jose Mourinho is counting on the player for the upcoming 2026-27 season, although his future will depend on the attacker's own decision."
That's great and all, but Endrick's decision was already widely reported last week: to stay and "fight for his place" (The Athletic). The decision, according to Mario Cortegana's report at the time, was one agreed on by "the player, the club and head coach".
Fichajes acknowledge this, to their credit, admitting that "Endrick, for his part has maintained over the last few weeks his intention of competing for minutes in Madrid.
"Just a few days ago, the situation pointed to him staying after Mourinho and sporting leadership opted to keep him in the squad."
You might naturally assume that Fichajes would then go on to explain how that decision had changed, with Endrick or Mourinho communicating a desire to find a different solution. Nope.
If nothing has changed, it begs the question how this is even a story to begin with. Yet this is the nature of the beast that is the rumour mill, and no one ever said it had to make sense.
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