KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Mane Given Number 10 - Nabil Fekir Conspiracy

Hi Guys, as I'm sure you have all seen today, Sadio Mane has been handed the No.10 jersey ahead of the new season. Not only is this great in terms of hinting at a possible longer stay/contract renewal I have a little conspiracy regarding the Nabil Fekir transfer...

I think it's been easy to see over the past few weeks the constant back and forth between UK & French briefed journo's with propaganda regarding the deal for Nabil Fekir.

Lyon publicly ended negotiations with Liverpool after seemingly being on the back foot after details of a historical knee issue were uncovered during medical. It was believed that Liverpool tried to use this new information as a bargaining tool for the transfer fee or to at least re structure payment terms to gain assurances over the medical condition of the player.

Since then Liverpool (Or should I say LFC's Un-Official Mouthpieces) have been putting out the same message of that a deal has collapsed and will not be re-visited.

A number of "ITK" twitter accounts and other un-recognised journo's since then have continued to speculate on the deal but no real information has surfaced.

Jurgen Klopp has even come out and said in a recent interview after concluding the signing on Alisson Becker "I think this will be the last business of the summer, unless anything changes..."

Lyon have appeared to respond to speculation that a deal for Fekir could still be resurrected after announcing that Nabil himself will be presented with the World Cup Trophy in front of fans at the Lyon stadium on the 12th of August, 3 days AFTER the UK transfer window closes on the 9th.

It was rumoured that prior to the deal collapsing, Nabil Fekir had chosen his squad number and with his favoured number of 18 being occupied by Alberto Moreno, many assumed he would take over the number 10 form Phillipe Coutinho. After all, he was intended to be his like-for-like replacement.

My suspicion is that handing the number 10 to Sadio Mane and publicly announcing the switch was a last ditch attempt at forcing Lyons hand into coming forward to re-negotiate a deal. The in that Michael Edwards is clearly waiting for the either chip down the transfer fee further or add in game time/injury related bonus'.

Please don't read too much into this, maybe it's just me being overly suspicious... I'd love to hear what your opinions are!

Alex

My take is that we had a spare number and gave it to Mane.

I wouldn't be surprised if we did end up with the Fekir at some stage,whether that's in this window or the next.

Fekir is number 18. For Lyon and France. He was never gonna take the number 10. Mane wore that at Southampton and wears it for Senegal.

I feel like it was either Fekir or Alisson.

I would still love Fekir tho.

It was either Fekir or Alisson and after we bought Shaqiri, it became ALL IN for Alisson

I think any deal for Fekir will now come down to offloading some players. The Allisson deal probably happened because Real Madrid dropped their interest in him or what I believe... they used him to get Courtois! The money for Allisson was probably the money that was going to be used for Fekir. The real spanner in the works is Sturridge's reluctance to go anywhere else whilst he has a year of 120k a week. Sturridge is now stating he wants to stay and fight for a place which as we know just isn't an option because we can't trust him and his fragile constitution. Klopp needs to tell Sturridge that he isn't in his plans and try and force Sturridge's hand...if not then get a club to pay his wages for the year and have done with him.

I still think Klopp would like to get a deal done for Fekir, with Ox now out for the season but things have changed so quickly.

Sturridge will not move on as no one will pay him the wages he get's at Liverpool, the only chance is if he go's somewhere like China or Qatar, otherwise he will run down the last year of his contract.

He's decent cover if he can keep fit, but that's a big IF !

Cover is fine for Sturridge. He won't have to be used too much. Bobby is fit as they come, and he never seems to get injured.

Personally, I love giving Sadio the number 10 shirt. Helps tie him down and reward him for his good service, and it's a shirt I don't like to see vacant. I love the fact that we have top players wearing our 8, 9, and 10 shirts, which are our most special (other than 7).

I love Milner, but it kind of bothers me that he wears 7. Not that kind of player.

I think the opportunity to sign Allison came about after he realised he was not going to Madrid and Roma dropped their asking price. They were meant to be looking for 90m in May.