24 Nov 2016

Anfield MegaDeal? Boss confirms 'top-class' striker wanted by Liverpool will cost '€100m', just like 'Higuain'

Liverpool's chances of signing 'top-class' Torino striker Andrea Belotti appear to have taken a knock this week.

Last week, Italian newspaper Tutto Sport claimed that the Reds are still 'monitoring' Belotti ahead of a possible January offer, but according to Torino president Urbano Cairo, the Italian striker is worth as much as Gonzalo Higuain.

Speaking to Radio 24 this week, Cairo confirmed:

"We are in talks with Belotti's advisors and we want to insert a release clause. I don't know if there would be somebody abroad willing to give me €100m for Belotti, but I think his clause would be worth that of Higuain."

€100m for a player who scores a goal every 166 minutes? Give me a break! Cairo is clearly living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that Belotti will sell for anything close to that fee. Additionally:

* With very few exceptions, Italian players do not attract huge transfer fees. Gianluigi Buffon (€52m) is the most expensive Italian player in history, followed by Vieri (€45m), and Inzaghi (€37m).

* After that, in the entire history of Italian football, only one player (Alessandro Nesta) has ever sold for more than €30m.

* There are no Italian players in the top 25 most expensive transfers in history.

For whatever reason, Italian players schooled in Serie A often fail to successfully adapt to other leagues, which leads to underperformance, and (arguably) has a knock-on effect on transfer value.

As such, taking that into account (and historical transfer performance) Torino will probably struggle to get more than €30m for Belotti, which may potentially be good news for Liverpool.



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