Rumour Mongering: Liverpool Are Sizing Up Lazio’s Keita Baldé Diao

Reports! Get your tenuous links and reports here! Unnamed sources out of Italy have communicated with ESPN FC that Liverpool have been watching Lazio’s 22-year-old forward, Keita Baldé Diao, and may be ready to take their interest up a notch. This means that some people will probably have lunch together and talk about it. And that’s pretty much what business is, as far as I can tell.

Balde, a Senegalese international along with our “doctor of dance” Sadio Mané, came up through Barcelona’s La Masia before moving to Lazio at the age of sixteen. And last season he managed a big leap in productivity, scoring fifteen goals as Lazio finished fifth in Serie A.

Liverpool have taken a look at Baldé before, having scouted him when Brendan Rodgers was manager but no official approach has ever been made to Lazio or the player, then or now.

Liverpool may very well be monitoring Baldé as an option this summer. But as the negotiation meet-and-greet with Roma over transferring Mohammed Salah is ongoing, this bit of Baldé-mongering looks to serve more as pressure on Roma than actual interest.

Roma kicked back a sizable Liverpool bid for Salah. And then told the Reds to step it way up. Letting a little Keita Baldé Diao leak out into the world could easily be a Liverpool tactic to show that Salah is not the only guy. There are loads of guys. So, just stop being such poo poo’s and get the deal done already!

Also worth noting is that Keita’s contract at Lazio ends next summer. And the Italian club will perhaps be hoping to drum up some interest in their young, promising attacker while his value is high. Or risk losing him for nothing next year.