Deal close, Bradley Barcola to Liverpool should follow

Liverpool should be close to getting Bradley Barcola. A separate deal is on the brink - and that's surely the catalyst.

Is Bradley Barcola going to join Liverpool? It feels a little more likely with every passing day, admittedly, if only because Paris Saint-Germain are so busy.

There's a sense, after all, that the real holdup with Barcola is that PSG want to make sure they've replaced him before selling. The basis for that is their continuous attempts to sign new players.

There was the failed Yan Diomande pursuit, for one, and then the successful Maghnes Akliouche one. They're also heavily linked with Ajax wonderkid Mika Godts and it appears they're also going to sign one of the world's most successful forwards.

Ferran Torres is in an unusual spot at Barcelona. He's done well without being a regular starter but they're not actually wanting to keep him much longer.

Any new contract for the World Cup-winner would necessitate an €8m payment to Manchester City, per the Athletic. That was built into the deal that saw him move to Catalonia from City.

And so the same report claims that Torres is now on the verge of joining PSG. The player agreed terms some time ago and it was down to the clubs to find common ground.

David Ornstein reports that they're now very close to doing just that - a sign that they've got the fee sorted and it's just the specifics about payments that need agreeing on. This should move quickly.

This would push forward the Barcola talks, no question. There is little to no chance that PSG can afford to have both Torres and Barcola at the club next season, let alone Godts and Akliouche. They simply don't have enough minutes to spread across the squad.

And so we imagine that any transfer here would be followed, quite quickly, by an agreement over Barcola. Everything is falling into place - even if we've been made to wait.