Bid rejected: Liverpool knocked back in pursuit of wonderkid dubbed a ‘generational talent’
Liverpool have reportedly been knocked back with an approach for one of their most coveted transfer targets.
According to Mundo Deportivo, the Reds have submitted an offer of €50m (£42.3m) to Lille for teenage centre-back Leny Yoro.
However, the Ligue 1 outfit have rejected the bid from Anfield as they’re holding out for a minimum of €60m (£50.7m) for the 18-year-old, who apparently has his sights set on a move to Real Madrid despite the Champions League holders’ reluctance to meet that asking price.
Described in a recent article by Martyn Ziegler for The Times as a ‘generational talent’, Yoro has already carved out a reputation as one of the most prodigious centre-back talents in Europe.
A sublime distributor of the ball (he had a pass completion rate of 92.1% for the 2023/24 season), he’s racked up 60 first-team appearances for Lille despite only entering his adult years last November, and his scope for further growth seems enormous.
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However, the question that Liverpool must ask themselves is whether they’re willing to pay £50m+ for a defender who still has plenty to improve upon in relation to positional peers among the top European leagues, and whether they could acquire better value elsewhere.
Feyenoord’s David Hancko is also of interest to the Reds, and as we touched upon previously, he’s outperformed Yoro for a number of key performance metrics over the past 12 months.
The gap from LFC’s initial offer to Lille’s reported asking price isn’t overly vast, though; so if Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes are fully convinced that the Frenchman is someone they want at Anfield, we wouldn’t be surprised to see an improved bid making its way towards the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in the near future.
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