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Liverpool have made a shock offer for a £400k-a-week star who is now keen to play in Europe next season, according to Sky Sports journalist Gianluca Di Marzio.

Reds' summer transfer plans taking shape

After two quiet transfer windows since replacing Jürgen Klopp in the dugout, Arne Slot will be tasked with strengthening his squad in a number of key areas this summer, and FSG are prepared to back their manager with significant financial backing.

A new striker could be required, with Darwin Nunez’s future in doubt, and the aforementioned report names Napoli’s Victor Osimhen as a potential option, alongside RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko and prolific Sporting CP star Viktor Gyokeres.

With Trent Alexander-Arnold recently confirming his decision to leave his boyhood club this summer, the Reds have also ramped up their pursuit of a new right-back, and David Ornstein believes Bayer Leverkusen’s Jeremie Frimpong is keen on a move to Anfield.

The dream Isak alternative: Liverpool working on deal for £60m goal machine

Liverpool could be about to land a star who could allow fans to forget about Alexander Isak.

By
Ethan Lamb

May 7, 2025

Having perhaps overrelied on Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister, there have also been suggestions that Slot could look to bring in a new midfielder this summer, and there is serious interest in Stuttgart maestro Angelo Stiller.

However, a surprise move for a Premier League attacking midfielder could also be on the cards, according to Di Marzio, with the Sky Sports journalist recently stating Liverpool have now made a shock offer for Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne.

De Bruyne is set to leave Man City on a free transfer this summer, with Pep Guardiola’s side taking the decision not to extend his contract, but the Belgian wants to remain in Europe, despite widespread links to the MLS.

Napoli are making a concrete attempt to sign the 33-year-old, so there could also be competition for his signature from some of Europe’s top clubs.

"World-class" De Bruyne likened to Gerrard

In truth, the Man City legend moving to Anfield doesn’t seem particularly realistic, given that he was in direct competition with the Reds for a number of years, during which time he impressed Klopp, who described the maestro as “world-class”.

Wayne Rooney has also likened the Belgium international to Steven Gerrard in the past, saying: “De Bruyne reminds me a bit of Steven Gerrard. He drifts out to that right-hand side and plays some brilliant balls whipped in, like Stevie used to. What I like most is he takes chances, he takes risks, he doesn’t go for the easy ball – he plays the hard pass.”

The £400k-a-week star is evidently in the twilight years of his career, given City’s willingness to sanction a departure, but he has still impressed in the Premier League at times this season, while also catching the eye in the FA Cup.

As such, De Bruyne could still be a difference-maker for a top club, but a move to Anfield would be extremely controversial.

It doesn’t take a footballing genius to work out what Arsenal need this summer.

Mikel Arteta’s side failed to get over the line in the Premier League for the third time on the bounce this season, and while they sit just one place off Liverpool, they’ve scored 14 goals fewer.

Now, part of that is undoubtedly down to injuries, but it’s incredibly evident that the Gunners need a new striker once the transfer window opens, and the board seem to agree.

However, while Alexander Isak remains the dream signing for so many fans, his potentially £150m price tag makes the idea of him moving to the Emirates seem practically impossible.

Fortunately, recent reports have linked the North Londoners with someone who could be an ideal alternative.

Arsenal's striker search

Before getting to the player in question, it’s worth reviewing a couple of the other striker targets linked with Arsenal in recent weeks, such as Viktor Gyokeres and Daizen Maeda.

Transfer Focus

Mega money deals, controversial moves and big-name flops. This is the home of transfer news and opinion across Football FanCast.

The former could move to N5 for around £70m, and while that would make him one of the Gunners’ most expensive signings ever, he’d probably be worth it as, in just 48 games this season, he’s racked up 52 goals and 12 assists.

The latter could be available for just £25m, which might also prove to be an absolute steal, as in just 47 first-team appearances for Celtic this season, the Japanese international has scored 33 goals and provided 11 assists.

However, Arteta and Co might want someone with more experience of football in a top-five league, which could explain the links to Ollie Watkins.

Yes, according to a recent report from Football Insider, Arsenal are ‘planning to reignite their bid to sign’ the Aston Villa star.

The report has revealed that even though the Claret and Blue rejected a £50m offer from the Gunners in the January window, he’s back on the club’s shortlist ahead of the summer.

It’s unclear how much he’d cost, but with more time for Villa to find a replacement, it might not be far off Arsenal’s original offer, making him an incredibly appealing Isak alternative.

Why Watkins would be a great Isak alternative

Okay, so the first thing to say is that in an ideal world, Arsenal would just go out and sign Isak, but that feels incredibly unlikely to happen and points to the first significant advantage to signing Watkins over him: the price.

For example, if the reports are to be believed, then the Villa ace could cost as much as £100m less than the Swedish international, which in turn would allow the Gunners to splash the cash on several other first-team players, like Nico Williams, Martin Zubimendi and others.

Moreover, even though he’d cost a third as much as the Toon ace, it does not mean he’d be a third as good.

For example, in 50 appearances this season, totalling 3054 minutes, the Englishman, whom podcaster Rohan Jivan described as “one of the best centre-forwards in Europe,” has scored 16 goals and provided 13 assists, which comes out to a goal involvement every 1.72 games, or every 111.75 minutes.

In contrast, the former Real Sociedad star has scored 26 goals and provided six assists in 39 appearances, totalling 3054 minutes, which comes out to a slightly better average of a goal involvement every 1.21 games, or every 95.43 minutes.

Finally, Arteta needs players he can rely on next season, and when it comes to fitness, the former Exeter City star is far more reliable than his potential competitor.

For example, he’s missed just three games for club and country across his entire career, whereas the Swede has already missed 67, and he’s only 25 years old.

24/25

43 days

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9

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56 days

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107 days

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28 days

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With Isak unattainable this season, Arsenal would do well to sign Watkins as an alternative, as on top of costing up to £100m less, he’d be far more reliable.

Mega Kiwior upgrade: Arsenal initiate talks for "superb" £34m monster

The experienced international could be just what Arsenal need.

ByJack Salveson Holmes May 2, 2025

Brendan Doggett put his case forward to be a reserve quick, but has any specialist opener done enough to be in the Test squad?

Andrew McGlashan01-Nov-20253:26

McGlashan: ‘Marnus has done everything asked of him’

Western Australia vs South Australia

At the WACA, there was almost as much interest in what Cameron Green didn’t do – at least in the match itself – than what he did. The full return to bowling was put on ice for another week as he was restricted to working through his loads around the game, including a bowl in the middle after the game was completed.Related

• 'I'll be ready' – Doggett waits on an Ashes call after six wickets on Shield return

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• Green helps Western Australia to safety, then gets into bowling work

Aside from that, Green spent useful time in the middle on the final day after his first-innings duck – a drive that he absolutely nailed, but straight to the fielder – and appeared disgruntled when given caught behind. Green has often said how he is better the more he bats in a certain format, so it will be worth watching how he starts the Ashes after somewhat disjointed preparation, although there is still a chance for a long innings in round four of the Shield.A significant performance in this game came from Brendan Doggett in his first Shield outing of the season after recovering from a hamstring injury. His 6 for 48 in the first innings could well have locked him into the squad as one of the reserve quicks. He travelled for the World Test Championship final earlier this year and was due to tour the West Indies before injury.”It’s just nice to see him come out and bowl like he did – he bowed quick [and] his body pulled up all right, which is good,” South Australia coach Ryan Harris said. “But timely to get six wickets, especially with that announcement coming up in the next few days. He’s got a bit of pace and it’s going to be a bit of a pace-off in this Ashes – England are bringing some serious pace. So he’ll fit in nicely… and if he gets the opportunity, he’ll be definitely ready for it.”Cameron Bancroft fitted into the issued-a-reminder category with a century in the first innings, but his chance of further Test cricket appears to have gone. That may not be the case for Nathan McSweeney, however, even if his next opportunity has to wait a little while. The South Australia captain put together an excellent century on the third day, and chipped in with handy wickets.Beau Webster got through a good workload with the ball on his return•Getty Images

Victoria vs Tasmania

Beau Webster has been assured of his place in the Test squad by chair of selectors George Bailey (the XI may be another matter) and the most important aspect of his outing against Victoria was the 23 overs he sent down after an ankle injury. However, he would have liked more time in the middle as he made just 11 and 6 in Tasmania’s defeat. But Webster will likely play the opening Test if there are any doubts over the volume of overs Green can send down.Jake Weatherald will be one of those hanging by the phone this week. He missed the opportunity to add further weight to his case for a maiden call-up although his two dismissals were against excellent deliveries. He may bemoan the life of an opener, having to twice come out with short periods to face before the close.Three half-centuries prior to this game, including his decisive 94 against Western Australia, arguably still makes him the most compelling option among the specialist openers, although Campbell Kellaway’s 147 further enhanced his reputation. It’s unlikely he’ll be in the frame yet, but the selectors went for Sam Konstas last season, so the precedent is set for picking a youngster.Fergus O’Neill probably won’t come into contention this home season, but he can’t do much more to push his claims than with four second-innings wickets to secure victory.Steven Smith looked in fine touch•Getty Images

Queensland vs New South Wales

Despite the selection race being tight, it’s unlikely a single innings will make a difference. However, Matt Renshaw missed a chance to build on a start against NSW to back up a strong week with the Australia ODI squad against India. Still, his versatility as a batter could work in his favour especially if the selectors want a player to cover a variety of positions in the squad. Renshaw’s dismissal came after Konstas had shouldered arms against Hayden Kerr to continue his tricky season.Usman Khawaja, who endorsed Renshaw for the opening role, put together an encouraging 87 to tune up for the first Test where the spotlight will be on him as the senior opener. If he starts poorly against England, there is a world where his position comes under scrutiny midway through the series.Marnus Labuschagne is certain of a recall, although where he bats may well not be answered until closer to the first Test. However, the manner of his dismissal at the Gabba may have caught the attention of England’s analysts. He flicked Liam Hatcher firmly off his hip to a well-placed deep leg gully. It was a well-timed shot, and he may be viewed as a little unfortunate, but it’s a manner in which he has fallen before.Steven Smith, who will captain Australia in Perth and perhaps beyond depending on Pat Cummins’ fitness, declared he was already ready for the Ashes before playing a game after arriving back from New York. After taking 20 balls to open his account, he looked in terrific order during a classy century, albeit against a much-weakened Queensland attack.Something that is worth keeping an eye on is the form of Nathan Lyon. He took 2 for 120 in this match, his wickets coming late in Queensland’s innings, leaving him with six at 45.66 so far this season, although conditions have favoured the quicks.

In the World Cup opener, England’s uncharacteristic batting innings was characterised by tentative shots more than full-blooded ones

Matt Roller06-Oct-2023As England’s players picked the bones out of the thrashing by New Zealand in their World Cup opener, Joe Root made a telling prediction. “I don’t think we’ll see guys getting caught mid-off or long-off check-driving anymore,” Root told the BBC. “They’ll be hitting it 20 rows back.”Root’s 77 was England’s top score and represented a welcome return to form for him after a quiet series against New Zealand last month. He was at the non-striker’s end for five of his team-mates’ dismissals and appeared to sense a pattern: with the exception of Harry Brook, England’s batters were not dismissed while trying to hit sixes.Take Jonny Bairstow. He fell looking to loft Mitchell Santner inside-out over extra cover, but with the ball angling straight in from around the wicket, rather than turning away, it hit the inner half of his bat and looped harmlessly towards wide long-off, where Daryl Mitchell took a good running catch to his left.Related

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Buttler says England 'well below par', Root warns against panic

At the death, with England looking to accelerate, Liam Livingstone had faced four consecutive dot balls from Trent Boult when he shaped to work a knuckleball away into the gap between midwicket and long-on. Instead, his leading edge hung in the air, giving Matt Henry time to run in off the boundary to settle underneath it.Brook’s downfall came about in a fashion that would infuriate many, caught in the deep trying to hit a fourth consecutive boundary off Rachin Ravindra during an over of drag-downs. So did Moeen Ali’s, playing across the line to Glenn Phillips. While Root himself was yorked while attempting to reverse-sweep the same bowler.But England’s uncharacteristic batting innings, scraping to 282 for 9 thanks to a 30-run last-wicket stand, was characterised by tentative shots more than full-blooded ones. According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, New Zealand attacked 28% of the balls they faced; England only 17%.Even Jos Buttler fell tamely. He made a clear attempt to target New Zealand’s change bowlers, hitting James Neesham and Ravindra for straight sixes. But when Henry returned, he pushed at a ball that shaped back in – “wobble-seam, trying to use the crease,” Henry explained – and was caught behind. He immediately threw his head back in frustration.England clearly tried to target New Zealand’s allrounders. With Lockie Ferguson (back) and Tim Southee (thumb) unavailable, and Ish Sodhi left out, Tom Latham had to rely on 20 overs split between Neesham, Ravindra and Phillips, who returned combined figures of 3 for 149.

“We’re not robots: sometimes you don’t play as well as you’d like. We’ll be better for the next one”Jos Buttler

But perhaps England were too deferential against New Zealand’s three main bowlers in Boult, Henry and Santner. Their combined figures were 6 for 133 in 30; Devon Conway and Ravindra showed no such caution against England’s frontline bowlers, taking down Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid and Mark Wood.Eoin Morgan, Buttler’s predecessor, was scathing in his assessment of England’s intent at the break, suggesting that they had let slip an opportunity to apply pressure after hitting Boult’s first over for 12. “You’d say that England didn’t throw many punches,” he said on Sky Sports. “They didn’t go hard enough.”After the game, he added, “They were so far off the mark. If you listened to Jos Buttler throughout the back-end of our summer, he continued to reiterate the message that you have to be more aggressive, to be brave… You have to be able to compete to say you were outplayed; for a lot of the game this evening, England didn’t compete.”1:45

Did England miss Ben Stokes?

Root expects England to be jolted into gear by their defeat. “It reinforces what we are about as a team,” he said. “We can remember how good we are, remember how intimidating we are as a batting group and double-down on it, really put sides under pressure and get those massive scores that blow teams away.”England do not need to panic. Six wins from their next eight games is almost certain to get them through to the semi-finals, and even five could be enough. “It’s one loss at the start of a very long tournament,” Buttler said. “We’re not robots: sometimes you don’t play as well as you’d like. We’ll be better for the next one.”They flew to Dharamsala on Friday ahead of their next fixture against Bangladesh on Tuesday where conditions will be very different. The weather will be cooler, the ball will travel at altitude, and a 10.30am start should ensure more uniformity across 100 overs than on Thursday, when the ball came on to the bat much better under lights.But Buttler will be frustrated that after seeming to rediscover their groove and tempo in this format last month, his batters did not exert sustained pressure on New Zealand’s bowlers. If anything, New Zealand batted more like England than England did themselves.

A number of things went awry with their batting strategy last year. They need to fix those this season

Deivarayan Muthu05-Apr-2021The Chennai Super Kings had too many leaks in their ship at the same time in the last IPL and they ended up second from the bottom – failing to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in their 11 seasons in the league.Nearly five months later, a new season begins but the Super Kings have the same old problems. Here’s how they can steady their vessel and perhaps steer it back to the playoffs.Don’t be too rigid
In their five-wicket win over the Mumbai Indians in last season’s opener, CSK promoted left-handers Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran up the order “to intimidate the bowler”, according to captain MS Dhoni, but they weren’t as flexible with their line-up overall. Curran was later promoted to open in the second half of the season, and while he showed attacking enterprise, oppositions countered by peppering him with the short stuff. Perhaps Curran had too much to do, having also been tasked with bowling the tough overs in the powerplay and the death.Related

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The Super Kings kept giving an ageing Shane Watson and a woefully out-of-form Kedar Jadhav games in the hope that they would come good at some point. While the team could afford such a strategy when their home games were at Chepauk, it hurt them in the UAE, where they couldn’t adapt to the conditions.They will likely face a similar challenge this season, with eight of their 14 leagues fixtures scheduled at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The average first-innings IPL score at the Wankhede in the past couple of seasons is 173 and at the Chinnaswamy 182 during this period. CSK need to tear up their old template of leaving it late in the game and instead try to maximise at the top in these high-scoring venues. These two grounds, along with the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, where CSK are set to play two matches, also don’t favour spin, so they may have to rejig their bowling attack as well.Make the most of Jadeja’s batting
Despite being in top batting shape and playing in the absence of Suresh Raina, Jadeja got to face only 135 balls last season, making 232 runs at a strike rate just under 172.The season opener against Mumbai aside, Jadeja didn’t get an opportunity to bat in the top five. In the lower middle order, he took over Dhoni’s role as CSK’s finisher, but Jadeja has expanded his range in the last few years and can be much more. CSK could instead consider using Curran in that finisher role. And Shardul Thakur could also be relied upon to clear the boundary in the slog overs.It remains to be seen if the thumb injury Jadeja sustained during the Australia tour earlier this year has an impact on his IPL role, but there’s a strong case for the Super Kings to make better use of his batting prowess.How about Moeen Ali as an opener?
In England’s competition-heavy T20I side, Ali is only a spare batsman and spinner. But at CSK, he could potentially play a bigger role and provide an option to fill a Watson-sized hole at the top. After all, Ali first made a name for himself as an opener, clattering a 49-ball century for Worcestershire in the Pro40 back in 2007. More recently in the T20 Blast in England in 2018, when Worcestershire won the title, and in 2019 when they were runners-up, Ali asserted himself as a robust top-order batsman.ESPNcricinfo LtdHe is no power-hitting opener like Chris Gayle or Jason Roy, but finds a way to regularly score over the top with his velvet-smooth bat swing, which makes him a useful option in the first six overs. Faf du Plessis did the job for the Super Kings in the powerplay in the UAE, but Ali’s left-hand batting and defensive offspin could serve them better this season.In 2018, the Super Kings transformed a certain allrounder who had been batting in the middle order for the Royal Challengers Bangalore into an opener, and you know how that turned out. Three years later, will history repeat itself?Crack the combination early
Last season CSK coach Stephen Fleming thought about promoting Curran up the order and picking Imran Tahir in the first half of the season, but Covid-related complications, the unavailability of Raina, and injuries to Ambati Rayudu and Dwayne Bravo messed with his plans. By the time CSK identified their most balanced XI for UAE, they were already out of contention for the playoffs.Raina’s return, Robin Uthappa’s transfer from the Rajasthan Royals, and offspinner allrounder K Gowtham’s signing all offer Dhoni the Indian cushion he has been used to having with CSK sides of the past. Last season he often had only five bowling options to work with, which contributed to the side’s failings. But this year, having so many options could also leave them in a flux if they don’t figure out their XI early in the tournament.Uthappa has said he isn’t comfortable in the middle order and has expressed his interest to open at CSK. That might mean Ruturaj Gaikwad, who showed spark at the top and also likes the ball coming onto the bat, might have to drop down to No. 3 or 4 if the Super Kings pair Ali up with Uthappa at the top.Which brings us to the Raina question. Where does he stand in the set-up after pulling out of the entire tournament in 2020? Even if the team management welcomes him back into the XI, does he still have runs in him? He has played only five competitive games since the 2019 IPL and arrived late to CSK’s pre-season IPL camp, which began on March 8 this year.