Report: Liverpool maintain interest in £36m Nuno Mendes

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Liverpool still want Nuno Mendes despite Sporting rejecting a previous bid. That’s according to one prominent journalist.

This comes from Bruno Andrade, a journalist for Goal and A Bola, among others. He believes Liverpool maintain their interest in Nuno Mendes.

Mendes, an 18-year-old full-back for Sporting, is a player Liverpool really like, then. They apparently offered £22.5m for the player – but Sporting said no.

Instead, the Portuguese side would want at least £36m before doing business. That would break at least a couple of club records at Liverpool.

What RTK has to say

From our point of view – write this one off. £36m for a teenage defender out of Liga NOS? That’s an outrageous price.

The only players in Liverpool’s squad who cost at least that are Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, Naby Keita, and Diogo Jota.

All came in with at least two years experience in one of the world’s top five leagues. The youngest, Keita and Jota, were at least four years older than Mendes is right now.

And even then, one of those players hasn’t lived up to the price-tag.

£36m on a teenager is an enormous risk, particularly in a position like left-back. That’s not to say that you can’t get that much value from a full-back – Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold prove you can.

But those two also prove that you don’t need to spend anything like that amount to find that value. They’re also anomalies – no other full-backs around provide what they do.

So we wouldn’t entertain that asking price for a second. We find it hard to believe Liverpool offered £22.5m in the first place, really.

If Mendes proves himself over the next year or two and that price remains around that mark, then we’d talk. Until then, it would be an expensive and needless risk.