Liverpool willing to meet PSG valuation for Manuel Ugarte – Talks latest

Liverpool are willing to pay a fee in the region of £50 million for PSG midfielder Manuel Ugarte (23), but potential progress is being held up by a number of factors.

Reds’ sporting director Richard Hughes has registered an interest in the defensive midfielder and the French giants are willing to do business if their asking price, which is believed to be slightly over £50 million, is met by interested suitors. However, the player is currently away on international duty at the Copa America with Uruguay and that’s not the only issue stalling things. The player’s representatives have allegedly already held talks with Liverpool’s Premier League rivals Manchester United and that is said to have angered Anfield officials and complicated things a little.

Liverpool and Gestifute have a very good working relationship having worked together on transfers that have included the likes of Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez and Fabinho. Liverpool are also continually linked with many of their clients as a result of various enquiries and offerings thanks to their unofficial partnership. Club insiders claim that Liverpool were promised ‘the first seat at the table’ should Ugarte look to leave Paris, but that apparently hasn’t been the case.

Last week, The Liverpool Echo published an article dedicated to the agency in which they talked about the club’s unofficial partnership with agency supremo Jorge Mendes. We discussed it on KopTalk.TV at the time as it seemed a little suspect and random. Some observers felt that maybe the club was using the Echo to lean on Gestifute a little, to remind them of that relationship and it’s possible that could have been connected to a small fall-out surrounding the Ugarte-United talks.

PSG have reportedly rejected an initial offer from Manchester United for the player and if we believe that the Old Trafford outfit did table a bid, that could indicate that Ugarte may have already made a decision about his future despite Liverpool not having sat around the table with Gestifute to date. However, the reports could be a load of guff and the agency may have been planning to sit down with the Reds at some point. The coming weeks could shed some light on that so we would strongly urge you to monitor all credible reporting surrounding Ugarte.

A source told KOPTALK this morning: “Yes, people are annoyed. Gestifute said Liverpool would be at the front of the queue, but as of Friday, that did not happen. There’s £50 million, £55 million tops there for PSG, but nothing’s gone in yet. I suspect that later today (Monday 1st) Richard will be reaching out to see what the state of play is with United because Liverpool want to sit down with Gestifute and PSG, but it’s just not happened yet. Richard is currently focused on this area of the team and a number of follow-ups will be made this week.”

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