Barcelona winger Cristian Tello could be on his way to the Premier League with a deal expected to be completed within the next two days.

That's just one of the transfer stories coming out of Spain right now, as reports persist about the possibility of Nuri Sahin moving to Liverpool and Luka Modric swapping Spurs for Real Madrid.

La Liga expert Guillem Balague is across all of the latest development. Here's his take on the headline news...

Reds target Tello

"Tello at the moment is an on-going situation. His agent wants to meet Barcelona today or tomorrow and after seeing what Barcelona want to offer - which is basically a 'B team' licence but with 'A team' wages.

"After that the agent will want to hear if Barcelona are going to play Tello a lot. It looks like he will be in the A Team sometimes, then in the B Team so the agent will talk to Barcelona about the possibility of moving on - either on loan or as a transfer.

"Atletico Madrid want him but the wage paid for him would be through an investment fund; the other team that is close to convincing him to move is Liverpool - not Arsenal, as has been published.

"Liverpool are optimistic that the player can go either on loan or as a transfer but it's an on-going situation that has to be sorted - that's what Barcelona want in the next couple of days."

Sahin swayed by Alonso

"Can you imagine a midfield with Joe Allen, Sahin and Lucas Leiva? It would look really good. But of course they have to convince the player - that's the situation as it stands now.

"Liverpool will want Sahin to come on loan; Real Madrid are happy to let him go - they tried to move him on loan last January. This summer they wanted him to be part of a transfer for Luka Modric but Sahin said no.

"But an interesting twist has developed in this story because it seems as though Xabi Alonso has convinced Sahin to move to Liverpool and now it will be a matter of negotiating that loan deal

"Again - it's an on-going situation. Nothing has been sorted yet but Alonso's work has been very helpful for Liverpool!"

Fernando Llorente's future

"It's possible we could see him in the Premier League but the situation is this: the chairman of Athletic Bilbao was talking yesterday in a press conference and saying that basically they don't want to let him go for less than his buy-out clause, which is £36m Euros. A Spanish club would have to pay VAT on top of that.

"There is only one year left on his contract, which means that if somebody wants to negotiate cleverly they could get him for much less. The fact that Athletic Bilbao doesn't need to sell immediately means that, as the chairman José Urrutia said yesterday, they won't reduce that fee.

"We'll have to see. What's clear is that there have been clubs in the past who have been interested in him but no club has put in an offer, apart from Juventus - that's the only one at the moment."

Modric move meandering

"His position is very, very clear - he wants to go to Real Madrid; he wants to play for Jose Mourinho. Spurs' position is very clear too - there's a price for him. When Real Madrid pay it, he can go.

"As we know, Daniel Levy is the most difficult man to negotiate with in football - and it should be that way as he's defending the interests of Spurs.

"As you can imagine, he has been portrayed in Spain as 'the dark figure' of this transfer but he's doing what he has to do.

"What is very obvious is that Modric will do all he can to move to Real Madrid. He's convinced that he will go to Real Madrid at some point but there is no date for it yet.

"Real Madrid aren't expecting anything to happen this week and it could go down to the last few days of the transfer window."

Don't miss Guillem's preview of the La Liga season on skysports.com this Thursday... and follow him on Twitter at @GuillemBalague

back to top