Liverpool Make $37M Bid For Barcelona's Target As Wijnaldum's Replacement: Report

Liverpool FC are reportedly seeing Roma captain Lorenzo Pellegrini as a possible replacement for Gini Wijanldum this summer.

Liverpool have made a bid of around $37 million for Pellegrini, who has entered the final year of his contract at Roma, Italian publication Corriere dello Sport reported.

Pelligrini is one of those players at Roma who has decided to move on and has not signed an extension yet, soccer website Teamtalk reported. While Roma would not want to lose their skipper for free next summer, Liverpool have a great record of signing players from the Stadio Olimpico side, having signed Mohamed Salah and Alisson Becker from the Serie A club in recent years.

Wijnaldum is leaving Liverpool as a free agent this summer. While he was initially linked with a move to FC Barcelona, it was then reported that he had decided to head to Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). A verbal agreement was reached between Barcelona and the Liverpool midfielder but even before the Catalans could conduct medicals for Wijnaldum, PSG swooped in and hijacked the midfielder by offering him wages double than that of Barcelona’s bid.

The Camp Nou side refused to match or raise the bid and as a result lost the race to sign Wijnaldum, who had been one of Ronald Koeman’s top targets for almost a year now. It was previously reported that along with a lucrative offer from PSG, a personal interest from head coach Mauricio Pochettino also helped Wijnaldum to turn towards the Parc des Princes side.

Liverpool may have to battle against Barcelona in the race to sign Pellegrini. After missing out on Wijnaldum, the former La Liga champions are eyeing the Roma skipper as an alternative target, according to Corriere dello Sport.

Wijnaldum’s departure has left a huge void on Jurgen Klopp’s side. Even though the number of goals scored for the Anfield side may not make his CV look good, his contribution in the middle with the ball may be harder to replicate.

In the 2020-21 Premier League campaign, Wijnaldum started 34 out of his 38 appearances for the Reds. Overall, the Dutch midfielder played as many as 51 games for Liverpool, across all competitions. While Liverpool had an injury-hit campaign, Wijnaldum did not miss a single game because of an injury.

Ahead of the 2021-22 season, Liverpool have made a move to bring Roma midfielder Pellegrini to fill in Wijnaldum’s shoes at Anfield. The 24-year-old Italian midfielder rose through the youth ranks of Roma and made his senior debut in the 2014-15 season. In the summer of 2015, Roma sold Pellegrini to their rival Serie A side Sassuolo for a nominal fee of around $1.5 million. However, two seasons later, Roma triggered the buy-back clause of $12 million, which was included in Pellegrini's transfer agreement with Sassuolo.

Across the four seasons at Roma since his return in 2017, Pellegrini has netted 21 goals and provided 35 assists in 151 matches, across all competitions for Roma.

It was also previously reported that Liverpool were looking at Leicester City’s Youri Tielemans as an ideal replacement for Wijnaldum at the 2021 summer market.