Sky Sports share important Yankuba Minteh to Liverpool transfer update

Liverpool remain involved in negotiations with Brighton to sign Yankuba Minteh this summer.

Sky Sports Germany’s Florian Plettenberg reports on X (formerly Twitter) that the Merseysiders “still really want him” and view the Gambian as having a similar profile to departed right winger Mo Salah.

The Seagulls attacker registered seven goal contributions in 36 games (across all competitions) last term.

Liverpool are very much set on Yankuba Minteh transfer

It’s worth emphasising that Liverpool haven’t entirely given up on PSG winger Ibrahim Mbaye this summer.

However, the current direction of travel would heavily indicate – despite Brighton and Liverpool yet to find middle ground on a fee – that Minteh is the preferred option at this stage.

Certainly, you’d have to surmise as much given that we appear ready to pay more for the injured forward now, rather than pay less for £60m-valued Mbaye.

Why is Minteh more attractive than Ibrahim Mbaye?

To be completely fair to Liverpool’s recruitment team, £60m for a teenage talent with limited senior minutes and no experience in the Premier League is a pretty big chunk of change.

Mind, we’d argue that the club would also be overpaying for Yankuba Minteh at potentially £65m-70m, but the winger market is what the winger market is.

From Liverpool’s perspective, the Brightonian would come with two seasons’ worth of Premier League experience attached, in addition to being a left-footed right-sided option – a surprisingly rare quantity in today’s market.

We suspect that Mbaye has the higher ceiling of the pair, which could potentially tip the scales back in the Senegal international’s favour if we can’t agree on a price with Fabian Hurzeler’s men. Not to mention the fact that the 18-year-old could slot into our first team immediately, while we’ll be waiting on Minteh to recover from his injury.

But for the time being, it looks like the Ligue 1 star’s Premier League counterpart is the most likely target to be finalised in the current window.