Rumour Mongering: Liverpool Sniffing About Leeds’ Raphinha

A fresh rumour making its way around the Twittersphere today is pretty exciting: it claims that Liverpool FC are interested in signing Leeds United’s winger Raphinha.

And what timing too, in the wake of Raphinha’s Firmino-on-Soldado-esque pirouette on Gary Cahill the other night.

The rumour seems to have originated from JuveLive - an outlet linked with Calcio Mercato, which also claims Leeds will target Douglas Costa to replace Raphinha, should he head for Merseyside. Now, why an Italian outlet not involved with either club would get wind of this transfer before anyone else, I don’t know.

However, if we assume the interest to be true, number 18 only just signed for Leeds from Rennes for £17m this summer. According to Transfermarkt, his current contract lasts until the summer of 2024, so an acquisition in June would be quite pricy. Add the Premier League experience tax and we’re talking a big ol’ sum of cash, that between all the rumours Liverpool are involved in (Mbappe, RB Leipzig’s centre-backs), I’m not sure that they have. File under “unlikely but yay if it happens?”.