2 years ago
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Photo by Liu Lu/VCG via Getty Images
Liverpool are increasingly seen as favourites to sign Jude Bellingham next summer but a new challenger may have arrived from France.
At just 19 years of age, Jude Bellingham is a star in midfield for Borussia Dortmund and England, and with every game he plays at the World Cup the hype only seems to intensify. He’s also expected to change clubs next summer, with Liverpool in the running.
More than in the running, perhaps, as over the past week a consensus seems to have begun to form that Jürgen Klopp’s Reds are favourites ahead of the likes Real Madrid, who the Spanish press believe are backing off as the player prefers a return to England.
Fresh reports out Germany similarly cast Liverpool as his likeliest destination, suggesting the player and his family see Anfield as the best place for the young superstar to continue his development in the coming years. Favourites, though, doesn’t mean done deal.
There’s still the looming threat of Manchester City in the background, and Chelsea occasionally get mentioned as well—though any suggestion Manchester United could be a potential destination appears to have entirely faded over the past couple of months.
There’s also a potential new threat in Paris Saint-Germain, with Liverpool-connected journalist Paul Joyce proposing the Ligue 1 sportswashers as a new challenger for Bellingham after PSG’s president went on Sky and noted that “everybody wants him.”
One imagines, though, that for a player who isn’t French and isn’ yet turned 20, a big club in England or Spain would be rather more appealing. Still, it speaks to the -in-demand nature of Bellingham and reaffirms that wherever he goes, it won’t be on the cheap.
