Anfield boss hopes for cash injection.
Bet on Liverpool to win the Europa League and get £25 worth of free bets!>
Atletico Madrid plan to scupper Liverpool and Tottenham’s attempts to land Arda Turan by making an increased bid for the Galatasaray playmaker in January.
Turan, who has previously claimed it would be a ‘dream’ to wear the red of Liverpool, is highly rated on Merseyside.
talkSPORT also understands Tottenham were interested in the Turkey international but Harry Redknapp’s signing of Rafael Van der Vaart suggests Turan is no longer on his radar.
Atletico made a deadline day move for Turan and planned to pay £11m in three instalments but Galatasaray wanted more money to be paid up front.
Madrid failed to come back with a better offer but they plan to return in January with a bid of around £14m, talkSPORT understands.
The news will be a blow to Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson – who has also been tracking Hamburg’s Dutch starlet Eljero Elia, as talkSPORT revealed earlier this week.
Hodgson is not prepared to bid as much as £14m for Turan, leaving Madrid in the clear to land the 23-year-old when the transfer window re-opens. (TalkSPORT)
It is clear that Roy Hodgson would like to add more creativity to his Anfield midfield, but where exactly is the funding for these big money moves going to come from? Having offloaded Javier Mascherano, Yossi Benayoun and Albert Riera and a host of squad players, the Liverpool manager was then brought in Christian Poulsen, Raul Meireles, Danny Wilson, Brad Jones, Joe Cole and Paul Konchesky for about the same amount as was made from sales.
Clearly with the current American owners in power there will not be a great deal of money forthcoming when the January transfer window opens so unless a new owner is found by then, these deals may be little more than wishful thinking.
Eljero Elia was a target during the Rafa Benitez regime and the Dutch winger is a hot prospect who would hopefully fair better than a certain Ryan Babel who is a very similar style of player. Arda Turan is a more cultured performer and a player who is incessantly linked with a move to the Premier League and now it seems that Atletico Madrid may have stolen a march on Liverpool and Tottenham.
Hodgson will hope that his current squad can crack the top four and knows that anything less would be considered a failure and with that in mind he has a tough job ahead of him. Some may argue that a new striker signing should take precedent over other additions and given that the club failed in deadline day moves for Carlton Cole and Roman Pavlyuchenko, it seems the former Fulham boss is more than aware of that issue as well.
Related Posts:
Liverpool Close In On Dutch Bundesliga Forward Transfer (Video)
Live Scores
