Liverpool will most certainly not be involved in a bidding war for Michael Olise after Real Madrid’s intentions were announced to the world.
The reliable Jacob Steinberg at the Guardian reports that Los Blancos will focus their attention on the Frenchman should Florentino Perez retain his presidency.
In that event, it’s thought that a bid of £130m (€150m) will be floated Bayern Munich’s way.
It should come as absolutely no surprise that Madrid will be coming in strong for the former Crystal Palace man.
The La Liga giants missed out on the Spanish top-flight this term and posted an uncharacteristically disappointing Champions League campaign to boot following Xabi Alonso’s departure.
Now, between the likes of Vinicius Jr and Kylian Mbappe (among others), there’s more than enough firepower for Jose Mourinho to play with ahead of the 2026/27 season.
Want more Empire of the Kop coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust
But an early statement of intent from Real Madrid is perhaps warranted to appease a fanbase bitterly let down in 2025/26.
Of course, it’s worth pointing out that even a seismic £130m bid hardly represents a FunExchange for FC Bayern fans.
Officially, Bayern Munich are not prepared to sell Michael Olise this summer. Period.
Unofficially, the Bundesliga champions will surely hold private talks if a particularly mouthwatering bid were to surface in Bavaria.
Chief Uli Hoeneß publicly told reporters that the club wouldn’t even consider a €200m [£172.6m] fee (via Goal): “We play this game for our fans. We have 430,000 members, we have millions of fans worldwide, and it doesn’t help them much if we have €200 million in the bank but play worse football every Saturday because of it.”
While we admire the sentiment, we rather suspect a fee close to the £200m PSG paid Barcelona for Neymar in 2017 would invite some modest drooling in the halls of power at Säbener Straße.
But then how on earth do you go about replacing Olise?
The prospect of Liverpool filing out with a forward line consisting of, when fully fit, Hugo Ekitike, Michael Olise and another star winger, is mind-blowing.
Of course we’d take a footballer of the 24-year-old’s quality in a heartbeat.
But the simple fact of the matter is that we have an awful lot of business to contend with as things currently stand without blowing through most of the budget on the France international. Assuming, of course, that he’d want to even switch to Anfield this summer.
Liverpool fans don’t need reminding that both wing positions need a serious injection of quality. Then further questions about the holding six position and the right-back spot, among additional concerns about depth, must be considered.
Welcome to our Live Comments section, where new comments will appear automatically
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.
