roberts

Patrick Roberts, Fulham.

Various newspapers have reported throughout the course of the day that Liverpool have joined a clutch of clubs keen on signing Fulham’s teenage forward Patrick Roberts.

This morning’s Sun newspaper splashed that the Merseyside club were ready to move for Roberts after the completion of Raheem Sterling’s protracted transfer to Manchester City yesterday. Brendan Rodgers is reportedly ready to offer around £5m for the England youth international, although City’s previous bid – rumoured to be in the region of £8m – has been rejected by Fulham.

The west London side have been keen to hold onto the 18 year-old, who made twenty appearances for the first team last season, but Roberts has so far been unwilling to agree an extension to his current contract, which expires at the end of this coming season. Roberts is rumoured to be frustrated by his lack of game time under Kit Symons at Craven Cottage and is ready to move on, believing that the time is right to step up into elite level football having starred for Fulham’s youth team.

Roberts has been linked with Manchester City for much of the summer, but with his father being from Merseyside and an avid Liverpool fan, he might prefer a move to his boyhood team. Tonight’s Mirror transfer round-up invites speculation of a bidding war between the two clubs, which might be the best way of Fulham getting close to their valuation of £10m for the talented teenager.

Roberts did travel with Fulham’s first-team squad for their pre-season warm weather training camp in Portugal last week but did not feature in Saturday’s 3-1 friendly win over Aston Villa.