Liverpool's Stance on Rio Ngumoha Amid Gakpo's Uncertainty

Liverpool have drawn a line in the sand over Rio Ngumoha. Bayern Munich can look, they can admire, but this summer they will not buy.

The 17-year-old winger, signed from Chelsea in 2024, has forced a rethink at Anfield. What began as a flexible, almost experimental recruitment – a talent earmarked for the under-18s and under-21s, with the possibility of a sale to Europe baked into the long-term plan – has turned into something far more serious.

According to TEAMtalk’s Graeme Bailey, Liverpool have now shut the door on any prospect of selling Ngumoha in this window. Bayern’s interest is real. Their need for a new left-winger is pressing. But Liverpool, sources say, are preparing talks over a new contract instead.

The Secret Scout, a well-followed youth-football voice on X, painted the shift clearly. Liverpool, it claimed, were initially open to moving Ngumoha on with an option attached, a kind of controlled gamble while he developed in the youth ranks. Then the season happened. Performances changed minds.

The message now is very different. It would take what has been described as a “huge” fee for Liverpool to even consider a sale, with internal voices said to view Ngumoha as potentially “one of the best wingers in the world”. That is the scale of the U-turn. From asset to protect, to cornerstone to build around.

While one young winger is being ring-fenced, another attacker is edging towards the exit.

Cody Gakpo, according to Dutch outlet Soccer News, “wishes to leave” Liverpool. The report claims the decision by Fenway Sports Group to sack Arne Slot and move instead for Andoni Iraola has left the Netherlands international looking for a way out of Anfield.

Tottenham Hotspur are watching closely. Their interest is described as “serious”, and the report suggests work has already begun behind the scenes on a plan to convince both player and club. Spurs need goals and versatility across the front line; Gakpo needs clarity and trust in his role. The fit is obvious. Whether Liverpool are ready to lose a senior forward in the same summer they are ring-fencing a 17-year-old is another matter.

What is clear is that Iraola will walk into a club in motion. One winger being courted by Bayern. Another being courted by Spurs. And a midfield rebuild already being sketched out.

Alex Scott sits at the heart of that plan. Liverpool are considering a £40m bid for the Bournemouth midfielder, according to journalist Jamie Dickenson on X. Bournemouth, for their part, value the 22-year-old at around £60m, which sets up a familiar Premier League stand-off: a buying giant probing, a rising club digging in over their star man.

Scott is currently in Miami with Thomas Tuchel’s England squad, preparing for what is expected to be his Three Lions debut in a friendly against New Zealand after a standout season on the south coast. He is not short of admirers. Manchester United are watching. Tottenham, the club he supported as a boy, are monitoring him too.

Liverpool’s angle is obvious. Iraola knows Scott intimately from their time together at Bournemouth. He understands his range, his press resistance, his ability to knit together possession and break lines. For a new manager, there is comfort in a familiar fulcrum. For a club that spent £415m last summer on the likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez and others, there is a demand from above: extract maximum value from what is already there before throwing more money at the problem.

That is the task being put in front of Iraola, according to Dickenson. Get more out of the expensive core, while trying to add the right pieces – Scott in midfield, perhaps Yan Diomande of RB Leipzig in attack, with the winger said to be on Liverpool’s radar at the £100m mark.

So Liverpool stand at a crossroads that feels familiar, yet sharper. Protect the future in Ngumoha. Decide the present with Gakpo. Chase the next midfield leader in Scott. All while a new manager tries to impose his ideas on a squad still echoing with the end of the previous era.

The decisions made in the next few weeks will not just shape a window. They will decide whose talent Anfield is built around for the next five years – and whose is allowed to walk away.