Rumor Mongering: Liverpool Prepare £125M Bid For Kai Havertz

I was this close to filing this under “your transfer rumor is bullshit.” Known transfer rumor bullshitters, Mundo Deportivo, are reporting that Liverpool are prepared to break their record transfer fee—the cool £75 million they paid for Virgil van Dijk—for 20-year-old Bayer Leverkusen attacking midfielder Kai Havertz.

The only thing really preventing me from screaming “bullshit!” at the Spanish publication reporting about a German player’s transfer to an English team is that Kai Havertz’s name likely features prominently somewhere on Michael Edwards’ Laptop of Destiny. This is to say that we are probably interested in him—along with a dozen or so of Europe’s other top sides—though unlikely to be interested at that price.

The cited fee is similar to that being floated around for the likes of Jadon Sancho, and far more than Timo Werner’s rumored release clause. While Havertz seems to be an up and coming star, the other two appear to be a better bet to step right into a starting XI (or at the very least push the likes of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, and Mohamed Salah for minutes).

The size of the rumored fee really sends up red flags for my bullshit detector. While Mikey E. has been happy to part with large sums of money for in-their-prime “sure things” such as Alisson Becker and Van Dijk, he has been more hesitant to spend the money on younger players. Perhaps he’s still feeling burned by Lazar Markovic.

Either way, it’s a rumor that is out there.