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Liverpool are set for an interesting summer transfer window with reports linking Sadio Mane to a move away, and now a new transfer target has emerged that could potentially replace the Senegalese winger’s outstanding output.

What’s the latest?

According to Mirror Football, Liverpool are tracking Rennes forward Martin Terrier as a potential replacement for Mane this summer.

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As per the report, the Reds were hoping to confirm an extension on their winger’s contract but with speculation mounting on his desire to leave the club are intending to identify players who can provide a similar attacking output.

Previous reports indicate Terrier could cost as much as €40m (£34m).

Mane replacement

With the Liverpool winger scoring 120 goals and contributing 48 assists over the last six years at the club, his boots will be hard to fill and FSG will need to work hard to identify a player that can seamlessly fit into the team, offering a similar goal threat if Mane does leave this summer.

In Ligue 1, Terrier who was hailed “quality” by Bruno Genesio, and hailed for an “astonishing” goal by the BT Sport commentary team, has had a phenomenal season in terms of his attacking output with the attacker the top-goalscorer for Rennes this season.

The £22.5m-rated star has scored 21 goals, more than Lionel Messi and Neymar combined, contributed three assists and created five big chances.

On top of that, he’s made 1.1 key passes, 1.5 tackles and taken 2.4 shots on average per game, as well as winning the majority of both his ground and aerial duels (53%), proving that he has been a solid and prolific attacking threat in his 37 appearances.

Terrier impressively ranks second for shots on target, is the third highest scoring player and created the sixth most big chances in Ligue 1 this season.

In terms of replacing Mane, Terrier not only offers high levels of goal contributions but offers diversity in his positioning which will be a huge benefit to Jurgen Klopp if they can secure a deal for the Frenchman, with the player confident playing in attacking midfield, left wing and as a striker.

Ultimately, FSG will need to carefully prepare for the likely departure of Mane going forward and identifying players like Terrier as potential replacements put them in good stead to be able to soften the blow if the worst case scenario happens this summer.

AND in other news: Liverpool can land dream Mane heir in £43m deal for “exceptional” 25 y/o “nightmare”

Sky Sports reporter Keith Downie has been left impressed following the appointment of Dan Ashworth as Newcastle United’s new sporting director.

The Lowdown: Ashworth joins Newcastle

Newcastle have now announced the appointment of highly rated Dan Ashworth as the club’s new sporting director, after the 51-year-old resigned from his technical director role at Brighton back in February.

Ashworth joined the south-coast club in 2018 after a successful stint as the Football Association’s technical director, where he led various England age groups to international triumph with wins at three tournaments in 2017.

Since arriving at Brighton, the former FA man has helped establish Graham Potter’s side as a mainstay club in the Premier League.

The Latest: Downie’s verdict

Taking to Twitter, Downie shared the news of Ashworth joining Newcastle, and the Sky Sports reporter gave his verdict on the appointment, claiming:

“Feels like Dan Ashworth is as good an appointment as Newcastle could make for their Sporting Director role. Time will tell, but going by his past work this feels like a bold & clever piece of business. Also been a while since I wrote/said “with immediate effect.” #NUFC”

The Verdict: Great appointment

According to The Guardian, Amanda Staveley’s PIF-backed consortium identified Ashworth as a key figure when they completed their takeover last October.

They report that negotiations took place amid claims that Brighton wanted £5m in compensation to release him from his contractual obligations, and now a deal has been struck.

With the perseverance and money involved for Newcastle to get their man, this is clearly a great appointment for the North East club, who is highly rated due to his impressive CV in the sport.

As a result, Newcastle will now be able to start making moves in the transfer market with their focus set on next season’s competition.

In other news: Newcastle United: Magpies target Hugo Ekitike ‘told’ he can leave Reims

BBC pundit Alan Hutton has claimed that Liverpool will be ‘raging’ after news has emerged that Mohamed Salah has turned down the opportunity of an injury scan whilst away on international duty.

The Lowdown: Salah rejects Liverpool request

It was reported by BBC Sport earlier this week that the 29-year-old had rejected the Reds’ request for him to have tests on a mystery injury before participating in Egypt’s match against Guinea on Sunday.

In a post-match interview, manager Ehab Galal confirmed that the forward did indeed have a problem before the game kicked off, but that he decided to ‘play through it’, rather than getting it checked out by the medical team.

The Latest: Hutton’s ‘angry’ Salah claim

Speaking to Football Insider, Hutton claimed that Liverpool will be far from happy with Salah taking any unnecessary risks ahead of the start of the new season.

“Liverpool will probably be raging. It’s things I’ve seen throughout my own career, this kind of battle between club and country.

“The player wants to play for this country, which is obviously great, but for the club, they obviously pay him the big wages. They expect him to be ready for pre-season and fighting fit.

“If he needed an operation, for talking sake, and he’d miss four, five weeks because of it, you could get that done now. He’d be back in time.

“Hiding the scan results or not showing Liverpool what’s going on, it masks over all that. They’re left in the dark.

“Of course, you’re going to be angry about that. It’s just natural you want your best players fit and ready to go for the start of the new season.

“It’ll be interesting to see what comes out from it. It’s not ideal hiding it from the club.”

The Verdict: Durable as ever

Salah did sustain a groin injury during the FA Cup final against Chelsea which saw him forced off the pitch, but was able to make a return before the conclusion of the season, having featured in the final day Premier League victory against Wolves to then going on to play the full 90 minutes of the Champions League final prior to leaving for international duty.

The 5 foot 9 talisman is an extremely durable player for Jurgen Klopp, having missed just three games through injury in his entire Reds career, so we don’t see this as a major issue.

He currently finds his future at Liverpool very much up in the air as he enters the final 12 months of his contract at Anfield, but if he is to remain on Merseyside, the Reds will expect their star man to be fully fit ahead of the start of the new season, while Egypt’s absence from the World Cup will force him to rest in the usually hectic winter period.

In other news… Liverpool are reportedly in talks with one of their first-team starlets over a possible new deal.

When you think of Liverpool number nines, your mind tends to automatically go to the greats of the past – the likes of Ian Rush and Ian St John. So the natural assumption is that this trend of world-class number nines continued into the Premier League era. That was not necessarily the case, however.

With the exception of a few greats, the shirt number has been somewhat of a plague since the top flight became the Premier League. Now safely in the hands of Roberto Firmino, a player some may describe as a unique striker in Liverpool’s history of forwards, the number wasn’t always with a top player.

Some Liverpool fans may want to skip to the later stages of this list, and avoid a horrible reminder of those who didn’t exactly have the best of times wearing the number nine jersey at Anfield.

As revealed by TransferMarkt, here is every Liverpool number nine in the Premier League era ranked by the goals they scored in the top flight.

Iago Aspas – 0 goals

Paul Stewart – 1 goal

Michael Thomas – 1 goal

Rickie Lambert – 2 goals

El-Hadji Diouf – 3 goals

Nicolas Anelka – 4 goals

Ronny Rosenthal – 6 goals

Andy Carroll – 6 goals

Don Hutchison – 7 goals

Christian Benteke – 9 goals

Djibril Cissé – 13 goals

Roberto Firmino – 61 goals

Fernando Torres – 65 goals

Robbie Fowler – 85 goals

Try to focus on Robbie Fowler, Firmino and Fernando Torres in the above list. You’ll have a far better time reminiscing about those three than Rickie Lambert, Iago Aspas, and Andy Carroll!

Before Firmino came along and saved the pride of the shirt, the number nine was passed from blunt striker to blunt striker, like some kind of decaying hand-me-down. Under Brendan Rodgers, the shirt went from Aspas to Lambert, before finding Christian Benteke. Those three combined managed a grand total of 11 goals.

With Firmino’s contract reaching an end next summer, Jurgen Klopp could be left with the task of finding a new number nine and replacing the Brazilian.

As of right now, the only candidate for the number that springs to mind is Diogo Jota. The former Wolverhampton Wanderers man netted 21 goals in all competitions last season, and more than proved that he is worthy of such a historic number. Let’s not forget new signing Darwin Nunez, either.

Of course, the Reds could look to the transfer market when seeking a Firmino replacement. They’ve built a reputation for getting it right when splashing the cash over the years, and this could turn out to be yet another prime example of their wise manoeuvres in the market.

Journalist Fabrizio Romano has provided an update regarding Wolves’ move for Matheus Nunes, claiming talks are still rumbling on despite reports of Barcelona hijacking the deal.

The Lowdown: Nunes saga

It looks as though the Sporting CP midfielder has emerged as Wanderers’ primary transfer target this summer, having initially shown interest in teammate Joao Palhinha.

Nunes has developed into an influential midfielder for the Portuguese giants, scoring three goals and registering two assists in the Primeira Liga last season.

Reports this week suggested Wolves could be about to miss out as La Liga giants Barcelona entered the mix at Jorge Mendes’ behest, and now another update has emerged over the move.

The Latest: Romano provides update

Taking to Twitter on Friday, Romano gave his own update on the situation, with no mention of Barcelona but a new problem for Wolves to worry about – personal terms.

“No changes on Matheus Nunes deal, as of now. No agreement on personal terms and negotiations ‘more than difficult’ on player side for Wolves.”

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The Verdict: Matter of time?

While this isn’t the most positive of updates, it does still feel as though Nunes is most likely to end up at Wolves this summer given the intensity of their interest, with Palhinha heading to Fulham instead.

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The 23-year-old has clearly been earmarked as the man to fill the eventual void left by Ruben Neves, with the Portuguese expected to move on in the near future and Nunes occupying a similar box-to-box pass-master role in Lisbon.

Signing Nunes, who averages 1.6 tackles per game and an 86% pass completion, would be an exciting piece of business, and while his own impact will clearly be key, the fact that he could replace Neves with ease is arguably the most important thing.

According to Tottenham insider John Wenham, Japhet Tanganga will stay with the Premier League club this summer.

The Lowdown: Tanganga’s injury setback

The 23-year-old had been enjoying life under Antonio Conte, making 11 appearances for the boss after his arrival in north London back in November last year.

Despite the positive start though, the defender suffered a major setback after he sustained a serious knee injury in March which required surgery, something that saw him ruled out for the remainder of the 2021/22 campaign.

As a result of not being involved in the action, some Lilywhites fans have recently been calling for the academy graduate to be sold, but after a fresh update, a club ‘insider’ seems to think quite the opposite.

The Latest: ‘He will be staying’

Speaking to Football Insider, Wenham says ‘a lot of people’ want the player sold and he’s ‘surprised’ by the negative noises around the player.

“A lot of people have been saying ‘sell Tanganga, sell Tanganga’. I’m sorry, no, you need a certain number of club-trained and homegrown players and he ticks every single box.

“Conte obviously likes him. People forget he made 19 appearances last season before getting injured against Chelsea.

“That game was 23 January so there weren’t that many games before then, he featured heavily.

“He picked up the man of the match award on the opening day of the season against Man City, shepherding both Jack Grealish and Raheem Sterling.

“He is certainly a player for the future. He seems to have been condemned for one red card against Palace.

“I didn’t realise young players were exempt from being able to make any mistakes. In the three games before that, we kept three clean sheets.

“He played every minute of them and he was outstanding. It seems people want to hold a grudge against him.

“He cost us nothing, came through the academy and has never really let us down. I’m a bit surprised that people are suggesting Rodon should be in front of him for some reason.

“Conte trusts him and likes him. He will be staying at the club.”

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The Verdict: Keep

Tanganga will have been disappointed not to have been able to play more often last season, but Conte will no doubt now take the time to make a proper decision over his future during pre-season, and the manager should definitely keep hold of him.

When the centre-back was part of the Spurs backline, he showed just how much of a rock he can be at the heart of the defence, averaging 2.7 clearances and 1.3 tackles per top-flight match, via WhoScored.

The Hackney-born talent, who was once hailed a “really special” player by Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville, has all the attributes to play as a right sided centre-back in a three and would be an ideal low-cost backup to Cristian Romero moving forward.

Sky Sports journalist Anthony Joseph has shared an interesting revelation on the deal that saw Celtic sign Jota from Benfica this week. 

The lowdown: Deal done

After much deliberation and apparent procrastination, the Hoops finally confirmed the capture of Jota following a successful loan spell at Celtic Park from Benfica.

The 23-year-old admitted he fell ‘in love’ with the Scottish Champions during his time at Parkhead and the club have managed to tie up a deal to sign the versatile winger on a five-year deal.

Celtic triggered a £6.5million option to buy clause as part of the initial loan deal to land the Portuguese star and as the details of the switch begin to emerge, one well-informed source has provided some key information…

The latest: ‘They wanted more’

Taking to Twitter, Joseph has claimed that Benfica ‘regret’ including the clause in the loan move.

He stated: “Been told by one source that there’s a lot of regret at Benfica for allowing an option-to-buy clause, for so cheap, on Jota’s loan last season. Another buying club would’ve had to pay a lot more this summer. That’s why they’ve got a 30% sell-on in the deal – they wanted more.”

The verdict: Masterclass

Make no mistake about it, this deal has already proven to be somewhat of a masterstroke from the Bhoys’ hierarchy.

Already boasting a rising market value of £6.75million (Transfermarkt), Jota seems certain to continue on an upward trajectory both as a commodity and in a career that has blossomed in Scotland.

Predominantly operating as a left-winger by trade, the versatile forward offers so many options to Ange Postecoglou’s squad and will attract major attention should the 18-cap Portugal Under 21 starlet enjoy another stellar campaign, particularly with the Hoops now set to be on show to the rest of Europe in the UEFA Champions League group stage.

Hailed as ‘unbelievable’ by Postecoglou after a standout 8.40 Sofascore-rated display against Dundee United which included an assist, three key passes and four shots on target, Jota will undoubtedly have a huge role to play again next season.

West Brom have been heavily linked with signing Leicester City midfielder Hamza Choudhury recently and the Englishman could be the Baggies’ next Youssouf Mulumbu in Steve Bruce’s side.

Reports have suggested that the 24-year-old is a loan target for the former Newcastle United boss this summer, although he will have to play a waiting game before signing him, as it will depend on Leicester City’s own transfer business this summer.

Brendan Rodgers isn’t currently short of midfield options at the King Power Stadium although both Youri Tielemans and Boubakary Soumare could leave ahead of next season, which might encourage the former Liverpool boss to keep Choudhury at the club as a back-up.

The Leicester academy graduate has never been able to establish himself as a regular in the Foxes’ first team, making just 83 appearances for the senior side in his career thus far.

Last season saw the midfielder manage just six appearances in the Premier League so it seems unlikely that he will be able to establish himself as a regular with the Foxes next season, and West Brom could be the beneficiaries by signing him on loan.

His contract with Leicester is also set to expire at the end of the season, so the loan could also be with the view to bringing him in on a permanent deal, which could potentially be excellent business for the Baggies.

WhoScored suggests that Choudhury’s main strengths are his interceptions and ability to block the ball, which may remind West Brom fans of fellow defensive-midfielder Mulumbu, who starred for the Baggies between 2009 and 2015.

The DR Congo international would make 211 appearances, contributing 14 goals and 11 assists, in what was undoubtedly the best spell of his career.

Rodgers was full of praise for Choudhury last season after his performance in a FA Cup win against Watford, saying:

“I thought he was sensational in the game. Sometimes it happens like that for a midfield player stepping back. He was defensively quick, making interceptions and blocks, his recovery speed was incredible and that’s why you always have quick players, especially how we play, squeezing the pitch. His passing was excellent in the main as well, so I’m delighted for him.”

If Choudhury can produce performances like that on a regular basis for West Brom next season, then he would surely be a quality addition to Bruce’s side, and he may even be regarded in the same ilk as Mulumbu by Baggies fans.

And, in other news… Bruce can land Matheus Pereira 2.0 as West Brom plot bid for “massive” £12m wizard

Everton have only made one signing so far but continue to be linked with a number of players this summer, and now an update has emerged on an offer made for a new transfer target.

What’s the latest?

According to Italian journalist Gianluigi Longari, Everton have made a loan offer for Tottenham Hotspur defender Japhet Tangana.

Longari tweeted:

“Many admirers for Tanganga as anticipated last month. Milan but also Napoli closely follow the central of the THFC which also has requests on loan from the Premier as Southampton and Everton. An Italian adventure teases the English defender.”

Frank needs him badly

It is no secret that Everton struggled in the Premier League last season with a relegation scrap that left the side vulnerable to a drop into the Championship, but ultimately they managed to secure survival on the penultimate game of the season.

There were a number of issues Frank Lampard’s squad faced over the season with the side suffering a major injury crisis for the majority of the season and having the worst injury record per 1,000 minutes in the Premier League, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin in particular missing the majority of the season through injury.

Not only did the Toffees suffer a number of injury issues to key players, their performances on the pitch were atrocious and the side ended the season conceding 23 more goals than they scored with Jamie Carragher branding the Everton defence “a Championship back four”.

As a result, it’s clear Lampard needs to address and improve the team’s defensive play, and signing Tanganga could be a great opportunity to do so.

Despite the 6 foot 1 monster’s limited game time with Spurs, he has proven that he can offer fantastic defensive attributes and reliability in the back-line when he has been given the opportunity to play.

Last season over 11 Premier League appearances, Tanganga who was hailed “really special” by Gary Neville made 1.3 tackles, 2.7 clearances and won 3.8 duels on average per game, as well as being successful in completing the majority of his dribble attempts too (71%).

With that being said, the signing of Tanganga could be a major coup for Everton as they attempt to rectify their issues and improve ahead of next season, and the 23-year-old could gain more game time and development at Goodison Park.

AND in other news: Alan Myers delivers seven-word Everton transfer claim that’ll leave supporters excited

Tottenham Hotspur are interested in a deal to bring James Maddison to north London this summer.

What’s the talk?

That’s according to Paul O’Keefe, who revealed on Twitter that, despite a deal for the 25-year-old appearing dead in the water earlier this month, Fabio Paratici is now ‘seriously considering’ making a move for the Leicester City attacking midfielder in the coming weeks.

The Spurs insider went on to clarify his earlier statement that Tottenham were out of the running for the England international’s signing this summer, revealing that his previous information was incorrect and that Antonio Conte’s side are now moving towards the Foxes playmaker.

In response to a supporter asking for an update on Spurs’ attacking midfield targets this summer, O’Keefe said: “They are very seriously considering James Maddison.”

Supporters will be buzzing

Considering just how impressive Maddison has been for Leicester in recent years, O’Keefe’s claim that Spurs are hugely interested in pursuing a deal for the 25-year-old this summer is sure to have left the Tottenham Hotspur faithful buzzing.

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Indeed, over his 35 Premier League appearances in 2021/22, the £45m-rated talent was in magnificent form for Brendan Rodgers’ side. He scored 12 goals, registered eight assists and created 11 big chances for his team-mates, along with taking 2.1 shots (one on target), making 1.4 key passes and completing 0.9 dribbles per game.

These returns saw the one-cap England international average a hugely impressive SofaScore match rating of 7.32, not only ranking him as the Foxes’ best performer in the league but also as the joint 13th-best player in the entire top flight.

The £110k-per-week midfielder also caught the eye in Europe last season, scoring one goal, providing two assists and averaging a quite astonishing SofaScore match rating of 7.68 over his five outings in the Europa League.

He also scored three goals, created one big chance and averaged a SofaScore match rating of 7.28 over his eight Europa Conference League outings, which saw him rank as Leicester’s best and second-best player in the respective competitions.

As such, it is clear to see that the versatile Maddison – who can operate from central and attacking midfield, and on either flank – would make a fantastic addition to Conte’s options in north London next term, even if his reported £60m price tag would be yet another hefty fee for Daniel Levy to cough up this summer.

AND in other news: Conte eyeing “very tempting” £7.1k-p/w Spurs target, he’s a “tactical evolution” dream