Liverpool rocked as Barcelona secure agreement to sign electric forward who’ll form lethal Lamine Yamal combo

Barcelona are primed to land a blow on Liverpool after agreeing personal terms with an electric forward who’ll compliment Lamine Yamal, with attention now turning to financing the significant transfer fee.

Yamal may only be 16 years of age, though the Barcelona and Spain youngster is already among the most feared wingers in world football.

Yamal helped guide his country into the final of Euro 2024 on Tuesday night. The left-footed sensation curled a sublime long-range strike past goalkeeper Mike Maignan and put Spain on their way to mounting a comeback after conceding early.

Yamal is the future of Barcelona and the club have already rejected a world record bid worth €250m from PSG.

Lamal will lock down Barca’s right flank for the next decade at least. According to Spanish outlet Sport, Barcelona have struck an agreement with the player who has been starring on the opposite side for Spain.

Sport state Barcelona have sealed an ‘agreement in principle’ on personal terms with 21-year-old Nico Williams.

Williams had emerged as Barcelona’s primary target in the final third this summer. His dazzling exploits on the left wing for Athletic Bilbao and for Spain at Euro 2024 had also put him on the radars of several English sides too.

Liverpool and Chelsea have been credited with strong interest in the player. However, TEAMtalk understands Chelsea have deemed the total cost of signing Williams (transfer fee, agents fee, player salary) was too high.

The door thus appeared to swing open for Liverpool. The Athletic’s James Pearce recently confirmed the Reds are exploring the market for a new wide forward this window.

But per Sport, it’s Barcelona who have agreed personal terms with Williams and attention has now turned to the difficult task of financing the move.

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Athletic Bilbao make like difficult for Barcelona

Williams can be signed via a release clause worth €58m/£49m. Per the Spanish report, Athletic Bilbao have zero interest in negotiating with their Spanish rivals and as such, paying the release clause is the only way Barcelona can complete the deal.

That will prove troublesome for Hansi Flick’s side given their well-documented financial strife.

Indeed, the report adds Barca had initially hoped to agree a structured deal with Athletic that would’ve seen the fee paid over a number of years in instalments.

Furthermore, Athletic’s unwillingness to negotiate also rules out the possibility of including a player in a cash-plus-player deal to lower the cost.

Sport also noted that while Williams is ‘100 percent’ in favour of joining Barcelona, he will not wait forever.

In other words, he wants his future wrapped up quickly following the conclusion of Euro 2024 and doesn’t want the uncertainty to bleed into pre-season and the early stages of the 2024/25 campaign.

As such, Sport concluded Barcelona hope to have raised enough funds and sold enough players to be able to pay Williams’ release clause by no later than the first week of August.

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