Earlier this week, a scouting director with one of the most coveted young midfielders on the market in his ranks confirmed that Liverpool had become regular visitors to his side’s homely, 18,000 capacity stadium.
“Liverpool have been on site and scouted. Oh my god, yes. It’s them all the time,” he tells Expressen.
Clearly, there is a good reason for the Premier League giants to send their scouts over 600 miles north to Scandinavia. Who knows, it might well be the same reason why Manchester United and Bayern Munich had representatives on hand to watch IFK Gothenburg defeat Mjallby 1-0 on Tuesday night.
In fact, it most probably is.
Manchester United wanted Malik Yalcouye this week
According to Expressen, Man United and Bayern were in attendance in midweek. Unlike Larsson, however, who would not confirm or deny whether it is Malick Yalcouye who is the object of Liverpool’s affections, the Swedish-based publication are a little more forthcoming and much less coy.
They write that Man United and the German giants were in Gothenberg to run the rule over the 18-year-old Yalcouye. FC Copenhagen, who have made the Danish capital home to the brightest young talents in Scandinavia, are keen to add another to a collection headlined by Roony Bardghji.
A Bologna side who secured Champions League qualification for the very first time but are now mourning the departure of talismanic head coach Thiago Motta were at the Gamla Ullevi on Tuesday too.
Yalcouye may only be a teenager. He may only have made his senior league debut in April. His impact at IFK, however, feels similar to that of Kobbie Mainoo when his Yalcouye’s fellow teenager belatedly established himself at the heart of Man United’s engine room before Christmas.
A Kobbie Mainoo-like impact
“I always think he is our best player,” Larsson adds. “I think he is completely superior (to the others) and I also think he always has another level in his body.”
The director understandably hopes to keep Yalcouye for as long as possible. But he knows that a long-term stay is wishful thinking, even if IFK are holding out for a fee in the region of £7 million which would make the Malian comfortably their most expensive ever sale.
“If we receive an offer that we cannot refuse, then we will sell,” admits Larsson. “But instead of saying; ‘We need to keep him for another one-and-a-half years in order for us to perform’, I think; ‘Let’s be grateful that we have been with (him in) this period’.
“Then, of course, we hope that he can play with us as long as possible.”
“There are a lot of requests and those requests are starting to become more or less concrete. It’s starting to bubble. We’ll see what will happen. But he is one of our absolute best players, so no one will be happier than me if we get to keep him.”
Yalcouye began his career at ASEC Mimosas. The Ivornian outfit famous for launching the likes of Salomon Kolou and the Toure brothers, Kolo and Yaya.