Rumour Mongering: Liverpool Reactivate Nico Williams Interest

07/03/2024 08:42 AM

The rumour mongers in Spain have Barcelona and the Reds engaged in all sorts of left wing transfer shenanigans.

To look at their depth chart, Liverpool don't much look like they need to make major attacking signings this summer, but speculation over the future of Luiz Diaz given open interest in his camp this past year in moving to Barcelona has led to some chatter.

The story on the Barcelona end this summer has pretty consistently been that the financially challenged Catalan club would like to sell 27-year-old Brazilian winger Raphinha to Saudi Arabia to fund an upgrade at the position—with Diaz a top target to replace him.

According to Nacional today, to hedge against that Liverpool have "reactivated" their interest in Athletic Bilbao star Nico Williams, with the 21-year-old currently tearing it up at the Euros and being tied down by a rather tempting €58M (£49M) release clause.

If Barcelona manage to sell Raphinha and sign Diaz, then, the Reds could move quickly to snap up Williams. Only it's been frequently suggested in Spain that it's Bilbao's Williams rather than Liverpool's Diaz that Barcelona would most like to bring to the Camp Nou.

So either Barcelona want Diaz to replace Raphinha in which case Liverpool would want Williams to replace Diaz. Or Barcelona want Williams to replace Raphinha in which case we probably don't need to be talking about any of this. And the latter is probably likelier.

Bilbao, for their part, aren't said to be fond of the idea of losing Williams, which seems reasonable. And for our part, we're skeptical Barcelona can sign either Williams or Diaz and so at this point think it's likeliest Diaz spends the 2024-25 season with the Reds.