As the new Premier League season begins to peak over the horizon, so Liverpool and their English top-flight rivals will start to shape their squads for 2024/25.
Those players who have been involved in the European Championship or Copa America won’t be back in training for a while now, but many first-team players have already returned to their respective clubs for pre-season.
Within a fortnight, many will be expected to have departed for overseas tours when, ideally, most clubs will have done the majority of their transfer business.
Liverpool enquire about Rayan Ait-Nouri
Indeed, Liverpool begin a tour of America on July 27 with a game against Real Betis in Pittsburgh.
By then it should be known whether they’ve managed to land Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 23-year-old Algerian left-back, Rayan Ait-Nouri.
According to CaughtOffside sources with knowledge of the situation, Ait-Nouri also remains an option for the Reds Premier League opponents, Manchester City and Chelsea.
The player is apparently open to leaving the Midlands-based outfit if he receives an acceptable offer in terms of length of contract and remuneration.
From Wolves’ point of view, they have set a price tag of around €45m for Ait-Nouri and don’t intend to allow the Algerian to leave for anything less.
The situation as it stands currently, according to CaughtOffside sources, is that representatives from those Premier League clubs mentioned have already met with Wolves to gather information about the player and understand all of the conditions required to be met in order for a deal to progress to completion.
As of this moment none have made a move, though should Liverpool do so for example, Andrew Robertson is likely to be one player that might be looking over his shoulder from next season onwards.
If Ait-Nouri signs, he’ll surely expect to be first choice, and that’s bound to put Robertson’s nose out of joint.
Ditto if the player ends up at either the Etihad Stadium or Stamford Bridge.