Liverpool's 50 million euro Akliouche push meets PSG, Manchester City and a World Cup deadline
Liverpool's interest in Maghnes Akliouche has had the shape of a clean Salah-replacement story for weeks. The 24-year-old Monaco winger, seven goals and nine assists across all competitions this season, a French international with the kind of one-on-one resolve the Anfield rebuild needs, fits the brief almost suspiciously well. The complication, as L'Équipe and Ligue 1 reporters laid out this week, is that Liverpool are no longer alone in the queue.
The €50 million push the Reds are reportedly preparing is real. Monaco's initial summer valuation sat at €70-80 million, but the club is said to have softened to roughly €50 million now that Akliouche's exit is treated inside the building as a near certainty. That softening is what made Liverpool comfortable enough to commit serious paperwork. What it also did, predictably, was wake up everyone else.
PSG move to the front
Paris Saint-Germain are the most pressing problem. Luis Enrique has been on the player for a while, and reports out of Paris over the last fortnight have PSG positioning Akliouche as Kang-in Lee's eventual replacement at the Parc des Princes. The kicker for Liverpool: Akliouche himself is reportedly prioritising a move to PSG over the English options. After a fifth straight Ligue 1 title secured this week and a Champions League final in Budapest still to come, the French champions can sell themselves as the easy choice.
Manchester City are the other significant name in the conversation. Pep Guardiola has reportedly been tracking Akliouche as part of a wider attacking refresh, and Get French Football News list City alongside Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Juventus on the wider interest sheet. Of that group, City and PSG are the two clubs Liverpool actually need to outflank.
The World Cup deadline
The deeper issue is the calendar. Akliouche is in France's senior plans, has been part of Didier Deschamps's recent camps, and is exactly the kind of versatile forward likely to feature meaningfully at the 2026 World Cup in North America. A strong tournament in June and July would almost certainly push Monaco's asking price back into that €70 million range and invite new suitors to the queue. Liverpool have been warned, in more than one report, that they need to close before kick-off in June or pay the difference in August.
That is the bind. Liverpool's interest is genuine, the price is now plausibly within their summer budget, and the player profile is exactly what Arne Slot's reshape needs. But the player wants PSG, PSG wants the player, and a deadline is closing. For Akliouche himself, the choice in front of him is broadly between a club that watched him come up at Monaco and a club that has just won everything in front of him. Neither is a hard pitch.
What it means for the Salah file
The Salah-successor story at Liverpool has been a long one. Francisco Trincao has been reported as a target. Bradley Barcola has been linked. The list of names goes back to last summer. Akliouche is the most complete option on it, and the one Liverpool's recruitment team are said to view as the cleanest fit on style. Losing him to PSG would not end the search, but it would mean the next round of names starts at a more compromised place. Which is why the next four to six weeks, before the World Cup squads are named, matter more than any single piece of paperwork.
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