Sporting Lisbon have rejected an offer from Liverpool for their highly-rated defender Nuno Mendes, according to a Portuguese journalist.
The 18-year-old has performed really well for Sporting Lisbon of late, making him one of the highest-rated young players in Portugal.
He made nine senior appearances for them last season, and he has already broken into Portugal’s under-21 side.
EVERYBODY LOVES: Robbie Keane was an under-appreciated Emerald genius
Mendes has started in all but one of Sporting Lisbon’s Primeira Liga outings this term, with the Portuguese side currently sitting top of the league with ten wins and two draws.
Leicester City and Arsenal have been previously linked with Mendes, while reports back in September last year claimed the Sporting Lisbon full-back’s agent had been contacted by Liverpool.
And now Goal journalist Bruno Andrade (via Sport Witness) claims that Liverpool have had a €25m offer ‘rejected’ by the Portuguese giants.
Despite that knock-back, the Reds are still ‘strongly interested’ in the youngster but now face ‘competition’ from La Liga outfit Real Madrid.
The report adds that Sporting ‘does not intend to sell the 18-year-old left-back for less than’ €40m.
Meanwhile, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists he and owners Fenway Sports Group are on the same page when it comes to transfer business in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Klopp said: “In good times everyone thinks our owners are really generous – ‘My God, big signings, whatever’ – and in bad times everyone thinks they are really tight – maybe because they are from a different country – but they are not, they are absolutely concerned about the club and success of the club.
“And that is an understanding how we have it. They see exactly the same things I see about necessity of players and stuff – it’s not that I say ‘By the way a centre-half would be really nice’ and they say ‘Wow, a centre-half. Really? Why?’.
“It is all clear, all on the table, we work on that. It is the situation and on top of that we have January, not the easiest transfer window, having not the money exactly like we want.
“It is a window where other clubs say ‘No, we have enough (money) to survive’ so we don’t do anything on our targets.
“It is nothing to do with worrying (about whether it affects their chances of defending their title) or not. These are the facts.
“My job is to deal with the circumstances which I always do. If the world would be in a completely normal place, we would try everything to do the right stuff now but the world is not in a normal place so I don’t know why we constantly try to treat the football like it is independent of other issues around.”