West Ham’s most exciting player Felipe Anderson featured on a list of Liverpool targets yesterday, which was published in the Mail.
The flyer enjoyed a good debut season in England having signed from Lazio in 2018; registering nine Premier League goals and four assists for the mid-table Irons.
At 26-years-old, he’s in his peak, but despite the claims in the original report, it’s not going to happen.
West Ham gambled on Anderson and spent a fee that could rise to £42m on him [Guardian] – so now he’s settled in and succeeded – there’s no way they would sell him for a fee we’d describe as realistic.
They’re entitled to make large profit on him, but that brings Anderson into the £60m bracket and that’s not a sum we’ll want to spend on a rotation winger.
This summer, Premier League attackers will have an outrageous premium on them. Crystal Palace are charging £80m for Wilfried Zaha [Mail], so we’ll have to find our versatile attacker from elsewhere.
Buying from either France or Holland could be the key – with Nicolas Pepe and Hakim Ziyech two potential options also featured in the original Mail story.