When I wrote my last article on Patrick Roberts – about how a move this summer was possible but unlikely – I never expected to hear similar words from the mouth of Brendan Rodgers, but clearly there are things happening here. Clearly there’s something going on that none of us expected. The club remains ever aware of what’s going on with the player, and with his club. They’ve asked to be kept informed and that means only one thing.
The English transfer window closes in a couple of days.
That will tell the tale. We’re on the brink of finding out who is being left out of the EPL squads. Every club down there is scrambling now to find players. Fulham have allegedly made an offer for Boyata, which I’ll discuss later in the day. There’s going to be a tense period between now and the EPL’s transfer deal expiry date; we simply have to accept that the rumours will fly until then.
But once those rumours die away, then what? A lot of English clubs are going to be left with footballers they can’t play. Another who might just be a possible – I assigned him a 5% probability in the same article I wrote about Roberts – is Jason Denayer. He would be an obvious – and excellent – replacement for Boyata if the time comes to let him go, and he would be more than adequate. In fact, I’d say we’d get the better of the deal.
Roberts is the real prize though, for reasons that I’m sure are obvious. He is the skilled player, the creator, the wide goal scorer we’ve been hoping to sign … with the added advantage that he knows the club, knows what’s required, and would love to come home.
I really did not expect to be writing this, because I did not expect the Roberts issue to be live. But as we go into the last week of the English transfer window – the last few days actually – his future has not yet been decided and that means that yes, we’ve got a chance.
So once more around the track with this one, folks.
If we manage to do the deal one would think that this time it would be for keeps.
Fingers crossed.