Real Madrid pay £10 million for early Trent deal | Al-Hilal confident of signing Bruno Fernandes | Liverpool to break the bank for Wirtz
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Welcome to Back Pages, bringing you everything you need to know about the biggest sports stories making the headlines in the morning's newspapers. I'm Dharmesh Sheth and joining me are ESPN senior writer Mark Ogden and the Daily Mail's football editor Ian Laderman. Welcome to you both. Gentlemen, let's start with Bruno Fernandes.

The Saudis apparently very confident now, Al-Hilal, that they can get Bruno Fernandes to join. £100 million deal potentially. He could be earning around £700,000 a week. Mark, let's start with you. If you're United, do you sell or do you keep? Well, Bruno Fernandes is United's best player. We know that. He's the guy that carried the team last season. But we also know that United are in a very difficult situation financially. So everything has to be considered. I think that every single player at United is concerned.

is up for grabs this summer and that includes Bruno Fernandes so I would definitely consider letting him go simply because they need to you know strengthen the side but my only concern would be

if they got 100 million pounds for Bruno Fernandes and got him off the wage bill do you trust the people charged with bringing players in to to spend the money wisely we also what happened with Tottenham and Gareth Bale left and they had a massive windfall there they wasted 120 million pounds now United got certainly a checkered track record in terms of signings over the last few years but obviously can't pin all that on any awesome the new regime but they did sign Patrick Dargou in January I think a lot of people would say that Dargou's not not quite ready not I've

nowhere near Premier League standards. So I would consider Bruno Fernandes to go because of the United situation, but I'd be a little bit wary of spending the money on who would be spending the money and who they're spending it on. Yeah, Ian, Mark saying yes, maybe sell, but not too confident on who would come in. Where would you stand on it? You don't sell your best players. You do not sell your best players and you certainly do not sell your best players when you haven't got very many other good players.

You don't sell your best players. He is by far their best player. I've been on this programme before, talked about him as the Premier League player of the season in my view, but

focusing solely on Manchester United, he is a shining light in that team. I know he's approaching the kind of time of his career where he might start to tail off, but there's no sign of it yet. I know they need money and I know they're in a situation that Mark and I could never, ever imagine that they would be in, having followed this club for 10, 15, 20 years of our own careers. It's astonishing to listen to their manager, Ruben Amrim, say...

in Hong Kong that we hope he'll stay and if he stays we'll find another way to raise money it's absolutely extraordinary this is Manchester United we were talking about

Despite that, we know they need to raise money. You don't raise it by selling Bruno Fernandes. The only way that you let him go is if he's absolutely agitating to go. And if you as the manager thinks if he stays, his heart's not going to be in it, he's going to be a nuisance, then that's a completely different story. It doesn't sound like Bruno Fernandes is saying that. You hang on to him, you find another way to raise the money.

Mark, Ian, just picking up on what Ian said there about the quotes from Ruben Amarim, he believes that Bruno Fernandes wants to stay and, as Ian mentioned there, they can find other ways to raise the money. But if INEOS and the powers that be at United can't refuse a deal as big as £100 million as it's reported to be, is that some sort of collision course that Ruben Amarim and the board are on then?

Well, potentially. I mean, you know, Ineos will have to look at the situation and bring up Hernandez. He's 31 in September, so they'll probably think that, yes, he's probably at the peak of his career right now, but in two years' time he won't be. And can they afford to turn this offer down? But I think, you know, in terms of bringing money in from other sales, I mean, where is that going to come from? Marcus Rashford only tried that in January. It didn't work. They ended up loading Suston Villa.

Antone Real Betis won't get a lot of money for him Alejandro Garnaccio maybe £40 million at best that's kind of optimistic Kobi Mainu perhaps they haven't got a lot of players who a lot of clubs want to buy so Bruno Fernandes is the golden egg in many ways and if

if they have to let him go they have to let him go you know i mentioned the gareth bale scenario before talking when they wasted the money there is a flip side to that when you know liverpool sold felipe coutinho to barcelona a lot of the fans were up in arms about that he was their best player you know coutinho was the guy that made liverpool tick but they sold coutinho san virgil van dyke and then alison becker and you know the rest is history as they say so maybe i'm giving united too much credit by suggesting they could do that with uh with the money that they get from fernandez but there are two sides to the equation and

And I think that considering the situation they're in right now, Fernandes' age, it might not be the worst idea to let him go. But like I said, you have to find the right people to come in, the right people to actually find the players that are going to bring in. Ian, you're shaking your head there. I mean, we can look inside the telegraph and the story there is that why Manchester United would be mad to let Bruno Fernandes go. It feels like it's a bit of a catch-22 situation here because on the pitch, they clearly can't afford to lose him, but...

off the pitch can they afford not to accept such a huge offer they've just finished 15th

in the Premier League with Bruno Fernandes scoring goals, assisting goals, take him out of that team, where are they? Where are they if you take him out of that team? Mark makes the comparison with Liverpool and Coutinho and Van Dijk and Alisson. I understand that, but there's a difference. Liverpool already had a very, very good team and Coutinho went. They didn't want him to go, but they had a good side. Manchester United don't have a side. They don't have a side. They don't have...

They don't have an attacking threat. They don't dominate the ball. They don't have imagination. They don't have goals. The only guy on that roster who even gets anywhere near those definitions is Bruno Fernandes. And I'm afraid if you take him out of that, OK, you can put Cunha in there. Who knows how that will work out? They're not going to get De Lappe.

Take Fernandes out of that team, what have they got? Somebody tell me, what have they got? Not very much. Just continuing to look at that piece in the Telegraph, Mark, the report talks about 18 moments left

And not such good moments from not sacking Eric Ten Hag to sacking Dan Ashworth to all the job losses as well. I mean, you could probably go higher than 18 given the turmoil at that football club over the past couple of years. Would 18 turn into 19 with this Bruno Fernandes saga?

There's every chance. It's funny because I'm sure Ian's the same. I always get asked when I write about Man United, why write about Man United again? Write about somebody else. Why is it always Man United? But Man United are playing a pre-season friendly in Hong Kong having just played a pre-season friendly in Malaysia. It's a Champions League final tomorrow and we're still writing about Man United because it's such a crazy story. It's the biggest club in the Premier League, one of the biggest clubs in the world and it's

and it's a mess. So this sole poplar that keeps on going is great for us and it's not very good for Man United and their supporters, but the reality is they are such a big club

that they shouldn't be in this situation. Now, 18 reasons for their downfall this year, that is probably quite conservative, but there have been a lot of missteps. I mean, there's probably been 18 defeats in all competitions, maybe more. So it's been the worst season in living memory. I'm not surprised that people are doing these pieces, but that's the reality. Until United get out of it, we're going to be seeing this sort of story and feature all through the summer.

Ian, Mark talks about the soap opera at Manchester United and I guess it isn't helped by the fact that their bitter rivals Liverpool have just won the Premier League title. And if we look to the back page of the Mirror, the Trent Alexander-Arnold story has developed today with regard to his parting gift, shall we call it, came under a huge pressure.

A huge barrage of criticism from a certain section of the Liverpool fans, didn't he? Leaving for free. But it appears he isn't now. So the parting gift is to get him there to Real Madrid a month before his contract ends is worth around £10 million to Liverpool. That's some business, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, there's some symmetry there. I think £10 million is supposed to be what Manchester United are earning from this pretty miserable jaunt around the Far East that they've just been on. And Liverpool are going to pocket that from the Trent situation. Look, I don't think we should paint it as brilliant business. The fact is that Liverpool are in the process of letting one of their greatest ever players leave for essentially nothing. That's not great business.

I know Trent has been getting all the stick for the fact that he's leaving on what is essentially still a free transfer. But the fact is that something has gone wrong somewhere along the line and that a very big football club, namely Liverpool, have allowed...

one of their best players to leave, essentially, for nothing. And it almost happened with Van Dijk and it almost happened with Mo Salah. So I don't think it's great business, OK? It's not very good business at all. What they've managed to do, somehow, because Real are clearly desperate to take their marquee summer signing to America for the Club World Cup, it'll please the sponsors.

It'll please FIFA, it'll please the TV companies. So Real Madrid are willing to throw £10 million at something, but really they probably shouldn't. But that's the type of thing that Real do. Liverpool are benefiting from that to a degree. But I don't think in any shape or form we can call it great business.

Okay, let's look at the Times because they're covering the Trent story as well, Mark. And I know Ian says it's not great business, but the optics don't look too bad after all, do they, for Liverpool on this one?

No, I take Ian's point. He's right that Liverpool had the chance over the last two years, 18 months, to tie Trent down to a longer contract. He may not have wanted to sign it ever. I mean, if Real Madrid were knocking on the door two years ago, he might have decided then that no matter what he was going to go to Real Madrid, they are the biggest club in the world. All the top players want to play for them. So maybe Liverpool never had a chance. But look, they've let him go. There's been a bit of criticism for it. But ultimately...

The guy was going on a free transfer and they got £10 million in the pocket for a month, basically. So I think what Liverpool should be doing is writing a big thank you note to Gianni Infantino at FIFA because he's the guy that's opened this window before this tournament. £10 million, you know, in modern football it's not a lot of money, but that will pay somebody's wages for a season. So from Liverpool's perspective, it's money they weren't going to get and they've got it. So, you know, maybe it's part of this Florian Wurz deal, who knows? But it can't be bad business if you're pocketing £10 million for a month's work.

Do you think it will in any way cushion the blow in the relationship between the Liverpool fans and Trent Alexander-Arnold? Because a lot of the fans that we've heard from, and we must say this, not all of them, won't remember Trent Alexander-Arnold as fondly as maybe he could have been had he stayed at Liverpool or maybe left with a couple of years left on his contract and maximised his transfer value.

That is very true. I was at the Liverpool game against Arsenal two or three weeks ago when he was booed by large sections of the crowd. I was absolutely astonished by that, I have to say. And then I was at Anfield last weekend when he got his medal and I was a little bit fearful about what may happen. And actually, nothing happened. He was cheered, he was applauded, he was allowed to go out without further ado.

without further discomfort, should we say. I think what is important and what I think everybody should realise when you just look at the football, if you forget about the noise and look at the football, what I've realised in the last couple of weeks particularly is just how much they're going to miss him. And when I say I've realised it in the last couple of weeks, we've already known he's a very good player. When he came on in the second half of that final game against Crystal Palace,

Liverpool were 40% better than they'd been in the first half. And in that moment, we were all just reminded exactly what it is Liverpool are losing and the player that Real Madrid are getting. He is such a talented footballer. He is so fundamental to what Liverpool have done when they've had the ball over the last five or six years. He is going to be so difficult to replace. So regardless if our Liverpool fans choose to think of him

I think it will be an incredible achievement if Liverpool manager Arne Slott can get through next season without anybody still talking about him and thinking, bye, we don't half miss him. Let's go to the mail now, Ian. And the big splash is Liverpool. Reds breaking the bank for Florian Wirtz. This looks pretty ominous, doesn't it, for the rest of the Premier League?

Yes, it does. It's an impressive business by Liverpool. When I say impressive, I don't mean in terms of how Virts will play or how he will perform for Liverpool because nothing's ever guaranteed from that point of view. But it's impressive in terms of its decisiveness, in terms of how early they're doing it. As we know, they've already done Frimpong from Leverkusen as well.

I hate to constantly reference Manchester United, but the great Manchester United years are still important and pertinent when we talk about things like this. And this is what United used to do in their better years. They used to strengthen when they were strong. There's that phrase about you don't wait until it starts raining before you fix the roof. And that's exactly what Liverpool are doing now. They're trying to get ahead of it. They're trying to get ahead of what might happen in two or three years' time by buying players now.

And it's really impressive. If you're a Liverpool fan, you'd be hugely heartened by this. Virch is a good player. Didn't have the best Euros last season. Last summer, I must admit, started brilliantly and then tailed off. But he's had another good domestic season in the Bundesliga. And he's one of those players who looks as though he's absolutely ripe to move forward.

to the Premier League now. Liverpool, you feel, have been almost waiting for this type of deal for a couple of years. Obviously, they flirted with the Jude Bellingham thing for a while and then they were in for Casedo, weren't they, a couple of summers ago? Didn't do anything of note last summer. That irritated some supporters. I aren't hearing that much from them now. This feels like

the summer that Liverpool have been building up to maybe for a couple of years. And this is maybe the one that might kick them on to the next level.

Yes and no.

And what I mean is it's been a long time since Liverpool actually smashed the British transfer record. I might be wrong but I'm thinking it was probably maybe Stan Collymore back in the 90s 30 years ago now. So we're talking about a club that used to be punching at the top end of the market but in recent years they've bought big when they had to in terms of Van Dijk and Alisson Becker less successfully on Darwin Nunes but this is a real statement of intent by Liverpool because we're

I think we got to the point where we kind of ruled Liverpool out of these big buys. We looked at people like Man City were doing it all the time. Man United would do it. Chelsea would do it. But Liverpool now, you know, they are back on their perch, as somebody once said. And he is, you know, and Liverpool are able to bring these players in. You know, Florian Virch, for me, is one of the best players in the world, potentially. We're all talking right now about, I mean, Jamal, and he kind of obviously has everybody. But, you know, Florian Virch is a massive talent. He'll drop into that Liverpool team and, you know, he could transform their...

their team all together. Obviously, they won the Premier League, they will compete for the Champions League next year. So it's a massive statement of intent. And like Ian says, they got on with it. City are talking about signing players before the Club World Cup starts, but what are Arsenal doing? We keep hearing that they want to send it forward. We'll get it done. Liverpool are leaving everybody in their wake. So full credit to Liverpool for getting these deals done very quickly. Leaving everyone in their wake.

Ian, is what Mark says. If we look at the Guardian, well, they've already started because even though we're talking about Wiertz and this potential British record, they've already brought a player in and it is Wiertz's former teammate now from Bayer Leverkusen, Jeremy Frimpong. It is really, really impressive, isn't it, what Liverpool are doing and so early in this summer's window?

Yeah, like I said a minute ago, it speaks to planning and it speaks to strategy and it speaks to organisation. It speaks to knowing what you want and going to get it. And obviously when you've just won the English Premier League, that really, really helped.

Money helps. We know that. But as much as some people might like to tell us otherwise, money isn't everything in football. It carries a lot of weight, a lot of sway. But joining Liverpool, a team that's just won the English Premier League, it brings huge cachet with it now. Absolutely. And there'll be other players around Europe looking at that thinking...

Yeah, I wouldn't mind a bit of that. We saw a bit of the Frimpong interview that you carried earlier, I think, from Liverpool's own TV channel. Essentially saying as soon as he heard that Liverpool were interested, he just said to his agent, just get this done. From a practical point of view, I certainly think they need him. I

I said what I said earlier about Trent Alexander-Arnold and how Liverpool will miss him. Conor Bradley, great talent, but that's potential. I was looking at his stats earlier. Conor Bradley's made 17 Premier League starts for Liverpool, so they can't expect him...

to play a 38-game season next time round as Trent's replacement. Jao Kwanzaa is the same. By coincidence, he's also made 17 Premier League starts and has just had a really indifferent season. So Liverpool need a full-back. There's some debate about where Frimpong might play, whether he'll even play down the right side further forward when Salah doesn't, for example. But I think fundamentally Liverpool need somebody to play right full-back, attacking right full-back. And it looks as though he might be the one.

Mark, away from transfers, let's get to the eye. And it's the small matter of the Champions League final on Saturday night. You're out there in Munich and the question being asked in that newspaper is, will PSG's multi-billion euro gamble finally pay off? So, Mark, will PSG's multi-billion euro gamble finally pay off?

Well, it's a strange headline because their multi-billion euro gamble was kind of shelved about 18 months ago because they abandoned that plan because they realized that signing Mbappe and Messi and Neymar wasn't working. So they

they cut it back they decided to to buy homegrown talent or promote young talent and they've got people like you know Dembele's leading the way Desiree Douwe is you know a fantastic young player they've got Fettini midfield Jean Neves so they've actually abandoned that the multi-billion pound project to to do it more that the holistic way shall we say got a great coach in Luis Enrique you know so that is a kind of reward for them deciding that they have to do it properly I was told that they wanted to build a team that the

that the PSG alters would identify with. They were sick of seeing these big-time players just not putting their weight for the team. They've now got that. They've got the best team to watch in Europe. I think they're amazing to watch, but I do think that Inter Milan have got this. There's got to be an ability to grind out a result. So it's so tough to call, but I think Inter might win it and spoil it for all the romantics around us. It's funny you should say that. Spoil it for the romantics around Ian. If you go to the Daily Telegraph, the headline is PSG win would be good for the game. Do you agree?

That's the only time I'll ever hear Mark Ogden romantic in the same sentence. That's all I will say. But I do agree with much of what he said. They have finally realised in Paris that there is a more reliable way to build a football team than chucking Galaticos at it. I think I was in Paris twice this year to see them beat Villa and then I think to beat Arsenal as well. I think I was at both of those games.

and we saw on both those nights what exactly they can do when they've got the ball how thrilling they can be but how a little bit more collegiate they are they're a team they work for each other they run for each other the superstars are now on a

par rather than having somebody on a pedestal would it be good for the game yeah it probably would be good for the game if PSG won this one I think no absolutely no disrespect to Inter who absolutely deserve to be there but PSG have gathered momentum through this tournament you've got to remember that they almost didn't get out of the group stage and

or the league stage, as we now call it. But they've gathered momentum through the season, through the European season. And I think if they take that, despite the fact they are still slightly vulnerable when they don't have the ball, if they take some of that quarterfinal and semifinal form into this game in Munich, then I think they will win the final.