Nabil Fekir Liverpool Transfer in the “Final Stages”

Nabil Fekir may not sign for Liverpool today. At this point, it’s probably even a safe bet he won’t. What’s certain, though, is that he’s a player Liverpool are pushing to sign, and that despite the tempering words of Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas, it’s a deal the club want done quickly.

To drive home that point, shortly after Lyon released a statement from Aulas saying a deal before the World Cup was unlikely, Liverpool-briefed Joe.com reporter Melissa Reddy came out with word that the Premier League side remained hopeful of getting a deal done before the World Cup.

Where Aulas had said the two sides hadn’t even got to the point of discussing price, Reddy said the deal was in its “final stages” and that Liverpool were aiming to get it over the line before the end of the weekend at a cost of around £60M. So. Either the deal’s nearly done or it isn’t.

Given Aulas’ track record, it probably is almost done, and his latest statements are no more than posturing to extract a few more Pounds from the deal. Given the track record on the Liverpool side, too, it seems safe to assume they wouldn’t put this information out if they weren’t confident.

That doesn’t mean something couldn’t go wrong, of course—see, for example, the Virgil van Dijk transfer saga last summer—but given the track record on both sides, it’s likely that the Fekir deal is going to get wrapped up before the World Cup and maybe even in the next few days.

Fekir to Liverpool may not be happening today, but it’s coming, and with it the conclusion of an impressive overhaul that will see Fekir join Fabinho and Naby Keïta in Liverpool’s midfield next season, giving the Reds the kind of quality depth at the position matched only by Manchester City.