Liverpool prepare fierce battle with Man Utd for £50m wonderkid as Newcastle centre-back shortlist revealed

The weekend is here and while that means a couple of days’ rest for most of us, the rumour mill keeps turning without pause – and as always, we’re here to round up some of the biggest and wildest Premier League transfer stories currently making the media rounds.

We’ll start with a story from TeamTalk, who claim that their sources have discovered that Liverpool are “discussing a potential move” for Sporting’s 17-year-old starlet Geovany Quenda, who has made a huge impression since breaking into the first-team of Ruben Amorim’s former club over the course of the year.

As some of you who keep close tabs on transfer stories may know, Quenda – who can play as a right winger or right wing-back - is also alleged to be a target for Manchester United now that Amorim has taken the helm, and TeamTalk claim that omnipresent super-agent Jorge Mendes, who represents Quenda, has already met with United officials.

Apparently Mendes is “eager to secure [Quenda] a move to an elite club” but clearly the identity of that club is in some doubt. Supposedly, United are preparing a bid of around £50m, which gives us a ballpark figure.

The 3AM Verdict: United have spent north of £50m on one teenager this year, but given that many reports suggest they want to economise a little more in the coming year or two, we aren’t taking it as read that they’ll do it again. Liverpool meanwhile, could see Quenda as a long-term replacement to Mohamed Salah, but aren’t noted for big spending. We doubt we’ll see any movement until the summer, in any case.

Newcastle shopping list revealed

On now to a report from Tyneside – The Athletic (behind paywall) have rounded up a list of the players they believe are on Newcastle United’s shortlist should they fail to make headway with a move for Marc Guéhi, which they may revive after it stalled at the eleventh hour in the summer.

They are expected to face competition for the Crystal Palace man this time around, so could easily look elsewhere – and the players under consideration are AC Milan’s Malic Thiaw, Benfica’s Antonio Silva and Bayer Leverkusen defender Edmond Tapsoba, who they also enquired after in August.

Thiaw has been watched over the “long-term”, it would seem, while Silva – who would likely be the most expensive option on the list outside of Guéhi, has merely been “tracked”, which in the language of the transfer implies that he’s not as high up the list. That might just be the reporter finding ways to introduce some elegant variation to his reporting, of course…

The 3AM Verdict: The Athletic’s reporting is usually reliable, so this seems likely to be close to Newcastle’s final watch list. We do expect them to make a move of some kind in January, and Guéhi is likely still the priority, but given how quickly the price shot up last time we wouldn’t be shocked if they ended up going somewhere else.

Fulham man ready to leave

We’re going to wrap up today’s column with a story which won’t make happy reading for Fulham fans – because it’s never a good sign when one of your established players starts giving interviews which make it perfectly plain that he wants to be playing somewhere else. That, as we know from Sport Witness, is precisely what Andreas Pereira has done.

It seems that he was close to a move to Marseille in the summer, with Nottingham Forest taking a look to – and he has spoken wistfully not only about missing out on a move he plainly wanted to make (“I was looking forward to it”) but has also made it abundantly clear that he still hopes to move at the next opportunity. The Brazilian has 18 months left on his current contract but the club have a one-year extension option, so he’s clearly resorting to making a nuisance of himself in order to get what he wants.

The 3AM Verdict: If you have a player making it very publicly plain that he wants to leave the club, then it’s probably best to let them go, but it’s a problem when you’re talking about a nailed-on starter like Pereira. It isn’t clear how much Marseille bid for him, so it’s hard to gauge how close a deal was to getting made in the last transfer window, but it sounds like we won’t have heard the last of this one.