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Hello! A critical week for Florian Wirtz. Manchester City home in on Rayan Cherki. A USMNT star set for the big time. And a big Manchester United boost. Strap in for our transfer special.
On the way:
🤝 The return of DealSheet
🪪 Messi trading cards twist
🔴 Mbeumo keen on Man Utd
🤔 Who wants £100m Grealish?
Wirtz Waltz: Liverpool’s £110m signing of Bayer Leverkusen midfielder in ‘pivotal week’
(Wirtz, left, and Cherki: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Fairly or unfairly, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the Liverpool owner, has a reputation for being tighter than the Undertaker’s chokehold.
Were that categorically true, Liverpool would be nowhere near the hunt for Florian Wirtz. As it is, they’re the only club in the hunt for the 22-year-old. The Athletic’s first DealSheet of the European summer is live today and Wirtz has top billing in it — at the start of what David Ornstein sees as a “pivotal week” in bartering over the midfielder’s price.
Liverpool have bid twice for Wirtz, taking their offer to £110m ($149m). Bayer Leverkusen holding out so far is a warning that they’ll have to go higher. Should Wirtz to Anfield happen, it’ll be a club record at both ends. So how, or why, is FSG putting up the cash when Manchester City baulked and backed out of the auction?
Truthfully, nothing has changed. FSG’s model is based on reinvesting the revenue Liverpool generate, and Champions League money combined with enhanced kit sponsorship from Adidas has done no harm. But more than that, FSG is benefiting from the last summer window, when Liverpool’s net spend was a barely-worth-typing £100,000.
The continuity gamble paid off as new head coach Arne Slot brought home the Premier League title. It’s paying off again by allowing them to consolidate that success emphatically. Jot this down as a rare occasion when standing still was moving forward.
Mbeumo keen on Man Utd, City chase Cherki
Our DealSheet is packed with great transfer nuggets. Let’s get to some more of them:
- A story that broke last night was Brentford forward Bryan Mbeumo deciding he wants to join Manchester United. He’s been in smoking-hot form and Brentford’s valuation of him will decide whether he gets his wish. They won’t go low.
- Ornstein has the twinkle-toed Rayan Cherki down as a target for City now that Wirtz is history (though Slot met with Cherki last week as part of his own contingency plan). There’s a way to go before a deal is struck with Lyon, but the 21-year-old has it all going on. Any league would be chuffed to welcome him and Wirtz in the same window. It’s instant product enhancement.
- Chelsea, who signed 20-year-old midfielder Dario Essugo from Sporting CP yesterday (not being funny, I had to look him up, too), might get priced out of a move for Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike. All of his attributes fit, apart from the fact he’ll cost them £85m.
- Barcelona have two senior goalkeepers, Wojciech Szczesny and Marc-Andre ter Stegen. Despite this, they’re keen to prise Joan Garcia (you’ll remember him being an Arsenal target a year ago) out of city rivals Espanyol for £21.1m. Garcia was La Liga’s top performer in goal last season.
Atletico and Cardoso?
One other story to touch on is Atletico Madrid’s interest in Johnny Cardoso, the USMNT midfielder who currently plays for Real Betis in Spain. An opportunity so big would catapult the 23-year-old to a different level, 12 months out from the World Cup. Everybody wins in that scenario.
Tottenham Hotspur have the right to first refusal on Cardoso — a legacy of their sale of Giovani Lo Celso to Betis in 2024 — and it kicks in this summer, but Atletico are the more coherent, established machine. However the cards fall, Cardoso has earned his stripes and a step up in level to boot.
News round-up
Hit the road Jack: Grealish set to leave Man City — but where will he go?
(Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
It would be doing Jack Grealish down to call him a £100m flop. His trophy haul at Manchester City is one shy of double figures. When it clicked for him there — really clicked for him — City nailed a Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble.
But £100m failed to buy 100 league appearances and four years after moving north from Aston Villa, Grealish is cooked — or cooked at City anyway. Pep Guardiola, who curtailed the free spirit in Grealish, doesn’t mess about. When you’re in vogue, you’re in vogue. When you’re not, you’re gone. See Kyle Walker for recent proof.
Now 29, Grealish has to break free. But what’s out there for a player who is being paid £300,000 a week? Our analysts think Villa’s style under Unai Emery would suit him, but finances and existing personnel probably rule that out. Further afield, Serie A champions Napoli could accommodate him tactically (and in theory they have money after selling Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to PSG in January), but they’ve also been talking about throwing a big wage at City’s Kevin De Bruyne.
Grealish is a sign of the times: an example of how quickly favour can recede and of how briefly a £100m investment can thrive. In uncoupling themselves, he and City might have to be creative.
No land grab: Why the Premier League has not had a LIV Golf-style challenger
The 2025-26 season heralds the start of a new domestic broadcast deal for the Premier League. Naturellement, the price has gone up — to £6.7bn over four years.
As time goes by, the competition gets richer. And what usually happens when an area of business booms? Other people try to muscle in on it. We’ve seen it in golf, with Saudi Arabia’s LIV tour moving tanks onto the sport’s lawn. We saw it with American football and the ill-fated XFL, an alternative to the NFL dreamt up by wrestling kingpin Vince McMahon.
And in soccer, we had the hoo-ha over the bid to form a European Super League, rivalling UEFA’s Champions League. So, Dan Sheldon asks this morning, why has nobody attempted a Premier League land grab — and is an incursion coming down the tracks?
The answer to question two is no, at this stage. And the reason, in response to question one, is that England’s top division couldn’t be much more financially rampant. As one of the people who spoke to Dan says: “The economics have gotten so out of whack.” The hand that feeds them is too generous for clubs to bite.
Around TAFC
(Photo courtesy of David Rodriguez)
Catch a match
(Selected games, times ET/UK)
Women’s Nations League, Group A1: Austria vs Germany, 2.30pm/7.30pm — DFB Play; Group A3: Spain vs England, 1pm/6pm — ITV1 (UK only).
And finally…
(William West/AFP via Getty Images)
No pain, no gain was otherwise known as Mathew Leckie powering through Australia’s A-League grand final on Saturday to pocket a winner’s medal and the man-of-the-match trophy.
Leckie, a 34-year-old midfielder with Melbourne City, got his nose rearranged by a stray boot against Melbourne Victory but bit down and bled through an unconventionally fitted bandage to shore up a 1-0 win.
Sensibly, he’s bailed out of forthcoming international duty with Australia’s Socceroos, saying he needs “a really good break”. I bet.
(Top photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
