Bayern Munich winger Xherdan Shaqiri, who has been strongly linked with a move to Liverpool, has denied contact with Juventus.
The 22-year-old, who starred for Switzerland at the World Cup in Brazil this summer, has found first team football hard to come by at the Allianz Arena, with Pep Guardiola preferring to use Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben and even Thomas Muller out wide rather than the former Basel wonderkid.
With opportunities still looking unlikely, Shaqiri has been repeatedly linked with a summer move away from Bavaria, and a whole host of clubs have been linked with a move to sign him. One of those has been Liverpool, with Brendan Rodgers’ side striving to improve their attacking play – and they’ve been handed a minor boost in their pursuit to sign him.
Shaqiri is also being targeted by Juventus and Monaco, but he says that he hasn’t had contact with any club – including Liverpool – despite strong rumours that a deal with Juventus had been all but agreed.
“I’m having holidays and I don’t know what will happen. The only sure thing is that I have a deal until 2016 with Bayern. We will see in a short time.
“Juve? I don’t know if there are contacts with them or with Liverpool and Monaco. Surely Juve could be a good option, they are a big club, who wouldn’t like to play there? I’m a Bayern player but I wouldn’t see the Bianconeri as a step backward for my career.”
Shaqiri is an outstanding player who showed his class for Switzerland this summer, particularly with his hattrick against Honduras. However, since then, Liverpool have landed the signatures of Adam Lallana (Southampton) and Lazar Markovic (Benfica), whilst PSV Eindhoven’s Zakaria Bakkali is also a target – suggesting that Rodgers may have ended his interest in Shaqiri.
A £20m deal would still be good business by Liverpool, given that few players of Shaqiri’s quality are regularly available at that price, but finding a way to keep the likes of Markovic, Lallana, Raheem Sterling and Shaqiri could prove too difficult for Rodgers – particularly if Bakkali joins the ranks too.
It seems far more likely that Shaqiri will end up at Juventus than Liverpool given their transfers to date, and having missed out on Juan Iturbe, Juve will be determined to land a star player. Whether Liverpool live to regret that remains to be seen, as some would argue that Markovic, Sterling and Bakkali have the potential to be even better than Shaqiri.
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