£113M FLORIAN WIRTZ BID REJECTED! ❌ After turning down Liverpool’s first £109million bid, Bayer Leverkusen have now also rejected their latest £113million offer for Florian Wirtz. Leverkusen are holding out for £126million… which would be a British transfer record.

Florian Wirtz Liverpool transfer latest as £118m Bayer Leverkusen compromise emerges

Liverpool remain locked in talks with Bayer Leverkusen over a club-record deal for Florian Wirtz. The Reds’ latest offer was worth an overall £113m, but the Bundesliga outfit are holding out for more as transfer negotiations continue.

It is likely that Liverpool will now have to break not only their own transfer record but the British record too to land the German playmaker, with Leverkusen braced for an improved offer from the Reds.

Liverpool had offered an initial £100m for the 22-year-old, with the additional £13m coming in performance-related add-ons. Leverkusen had been holding out for closer to their asking price of £126m. And though the Reds are currently unwilling to meet that full fee, a compromise is likely to be met.

The 22-year-old, who started for Germany in the Nations League third-place play-off against France on Sunday, has already confirmed his desire to move to Anfield with Leverkusen resigned to losing their star man as a result.

The Reds had already seen an £109m offer rejected last weekend, with the ECHO previously reporting that it was thought that the German side were at least holding out for a deal closer to £115m. It has now been suggested that an £118m bid would be enough to strike a deal as talks continue.

Such a bid would break the British transfer record of £115m when Chelsea signed Moises Caicedo from Brighton & Hove Albion in the summer of 2023.

It would also smash Liverpool’s own record, having previously forked out £75m when signing Virgil van Dijk from Southampton in January 2018 and committed to pay £85m including add-ons when bringing in Darwin Nunez from Benfica in the summer of 2022.

All parties remain confident that a deal will be struck as negotiations continue over the weekend, and personal terms will not be an issue once a fee is agreed, with Wirtz waiting the green light to fly to Merseyside for a medical once his international commitments have concluded.

Bayern Munich had initially been the favourites for the player’s signature, only to be left disappointed once Liverpool stepped up their interest. Man City had also previously ended their interest in the German.

Liverpool have been in talks with Leverkusen for Wirtz for two weeks, having already signed Jeremie Frimpong from the Bundesliga club after activating his £29.5m release clause.

Once a deal for Wirtz is agreed, the Reds are set to ramp up their efforts to sign Milos Kerkez from AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries are believed to be holding out for £45m for the Hungary international.

The last of Craig Bellamy’s 78 Wales caps came in Brussels in October 2013 and although that 1-1 draw concluded an underwhelming World Cup qualifying campaign, the Belgian capital is where he considers his coaching career achieved liftoff. He spent a little more than two years working at Anderlecht alongside his former Manchester City teammate Vincent Kompany, first as the under-21 coach and then as Kompany’s assistant, a springboard that has led him to representing his country at the King Baudouin Stadium for another qualifier, this time as a manager.

It is a city Bellamy remembers fondly, despite leaving Anderlecht in September 2021, before the end of his contract, to return to Cardiff to deal with depression after struggling being away from his family. “I loved living in Brussels,” he says. “It gave me a good step back. I was completely unrecognisable – no one had a clue who I was, which was nice. I enjoyed that peace.

Even at the club, I think they had to Google or YouTube me to know who I was. It gave me freedom, it allowed me to breathe. I always wanted to go abroad. I should’ve done it as a player but I refused a few times. I looked back when I finished and thought: ‘Maybe I should’ve done that.’”

He lived in an apartment on Avenue Louise, a popular thoroughfare in the south of Brussels and home to boutique brands and trendy eateries, a few miles from Anderlecht, a club that has long prided itself on developing players where its motto – In Youth We Trust – is not an empty slogan. Some days he and Kompany would arrive at 7.30am and at 8pm still be moving mannequins and talking patterns under the floodlights.

He loved the back and forth, though Bellamy tells a time where he did not speak to Kompany for “a day and a half” because he felt Kompany called up too many youngsters for his first team. Romelu Lukaku and Youri Tielemans, both of whom will probably be playing for Belgium on Monday, and Kompany, are among the club’s most celebrated alumni.

Another player likely to feature is the winger Jérémy Doku, now of City, who Bellamy first coached as a 16-year-old at Anderlecht. “He could lose you in a phone booth,” Bellamy says. “I have never had to apologise to so many under-21 coaches that a 17-year-old was playing – that’s how good he was. It’s like it wasn’t fair.

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“We can all spot ability, but I loved him as a person and still do. He could test you, but I loved that. He taught me more about how to be a coach than a lot of players. Because you have to understand the background they [players] are from, the culture they are from. His drive was insane, which I loved. Great kid. I played a small part, a tiny part of his development.”

He also worked with Zeno Debast, who joined Sporting from Anderlecht last year. Bellamy rejected interest as a player from Juventus, Marseille, Valencia, Ajax and Feyenoord but, he says, his time in Belgium with Kompany gave him a priceless education in coaching, which accelerated his development as a manager.

That was where I learned football,” he says. “I came across so many good people. It was a very different place … different languages, you go 20 minutes there, a different language, 20 minutes there, different language, different culture, different way of doing things, different governments.

“I found that with all the players, too; players from different regions spoke different languages. They all had completely different backgrounds and that is where you learn coaching. They all have different mentalities, drives and cultures.”

The last time Bellamy was in Belgium was two years ago for a pre-season friendly at Genk with Burnley, where he also worked as an assistant to Kompany. Connor Roberts, the dependable Wales full-back, was part of that side. After this visit, Bellamy will return for a wedding next weekend, by which point, if things go to plan, Wales will be 10 games unbeaten under the 45-year-old.

Bellamy, who succeeded Rob Page last July, says being Wales manager has given him “the best year” of his life. “I’ve just loved every moment. It’s going to happen [a defeat]. Do I live in fear of it? Not at all. I don’t live that way. I’ve had so many setbacks in my life, it’s OK, I’m still here. And I’ve just had the best year of my life – this [job] has been the best. How did I get that at 45? It’s what I have been waiting for. At the same time I don’t know what’s around the corner. I don’t. But, I know what I’m going to do: enjoy everything. The good, the bad, whatever it is.

“Maybe I look too deep into stuff, I try not to … We’re here for a tiny, short time. You’re worried about what people say? Don’t. They’re going to talk anyway. Be you. Enjoy the best thing you’ve ever got. Live it to the fullest. I don’t know if that is more football or life in general. I don’t care. I had a gift of not caring what people thought. I liked that … so I kept that gift. But also, pff, I’m here today, I’ll be gone tomorrow. So why not enjoy it? Am I going to get stressed before this game? No. I can’t wait for it. I want it now. OK, I’ve got to wait another 24 hours. But it will be so worth it.”

For Kompany, a return to Anderlecht as a player-coach after 11 years at City, was the first step on a journey that has taken him to Bayern Munich, where he won the Bundesliga in his first season. Bellamy’s reputation as a coach is also growing. He is a compelling orator and his house rules, so to speak, have further endeared him to supporters: no swapping shirts, for starters. Not allowing the Wales crest to touch the floor is another. Before the 3-0 victory against Liechtenstein on Friday, he referenced the 1984 film The Karate Kid. “Does he do karate straight away? No, it’s Mr Miyagi who decides. It’s wax on, wax off. He paints the fence. He teaches him all these rules before he can do karate, so that he has the discipline.

“It’s about basics, habits. If you don’t have that intensity without the ball, if your body language is poor and you’re waving your hands, it’s the wrong team for you. This is not your team.”

Bellamy’s final action in a Wales shirt was a typically heart-on-sleeve performance under Chris Coleman. That night a 16-year-old Harry Wilson, arguably the most important player in Bellamy’s squad, entered as a substitute to become the youngest player capped by his country. Kevin De Bruyne and Lukaku remain from their opponents that day and although Belgium have won one of their past eight matches, they are eighth in the Fifa rankings and surely pose Wales’s greatest threat in Group J.

Regardless of how things are going at the King Baudouin Stadium, there is one thing Bellamy will not ask of his players: feign injury to waste time, a tactic he felt North Macedonia used to their advantage in March. “We have viewers, we have a responsibility,” he says. “Even if I’m getting my ass kicked, I ain’t doing it.”