Lionel Messi wants 6 players sold from Barcelona, Real Madrid set to sign €220 million duo and more: Transfer Roundup, 26 May 2019

Florentino Perez is close to wrapping up deals for Matthijs De Ligt and Paul Pogba

The Matthijs De Ligt transfer saga has already seen its fair share of twists and turns. With Manchester United and Barcelona widely tipped to be battling it out to secure the Dutchman's services, there was no telling where he is going next season. However, latest reports in Spain claim that Real Madrid are now ready to hijack the deal for De Ligt.

Though De Ligt is keen on reuniting with his former teammate Frenkie De Jong, he has revealed that he is not excited by Ernesto Valverde's Barcelona project. Real Madrid hope that they can convince Ajax to sell De Ligt for a sum in the ballpark of €80-90 million.

Meanwhile, Real Madrid are growing increasingly confident of landing Paul Pogba. Pogba's and Zidane's mutual admiration will go a long way towards the deal getting finalized. The report claims that if Pogba heeds Zizou's advice to hand in a transfer request, Perez thinks his price will drop and that they can snatch him up for €120 million.

Both the players are represented by Mino Raiola.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Sripad