Last week the Talisca to Wolves rumours were reborn, with quite some enthusiasm in Turkey and Portugal. The Championship club were said to be willing to spend as much as €30m on the Benfica owned Brazilian, and that put Besiktas under some pressure.
Talisca is currenlty on loan at Besiktas, with the Turkish club having a €21m buying option over him, and this week it’s been reported the club have started talks to try and get that price down.
On Tuesday we suggested the whole Wolves thing was to put pressure on Besiktas, and that it seemed to be working. Well, just to ramp things up even more, Manchester United have now been brought in.
Jose Mourinho has ‘reserved’ the player at a cost of up to €40m, and it’s someone he’s been a long term fan of. When Talisca signed for Benfica, Mourinho was Chelsea manager and said he would have brought the player to England had he been able to secure a work permit.
That infuriated Jorge Jesus, then at Benfica, and the two managers had a very public spat about who ‘discovered’ Talisca first.
It’s also claimed Benfica had previously been working on selling Talisca to a Chinese club for €40m, and had a deal almost built for around that figure.
The question is whether all of this is to put pressure on Besiktas, just like it seemed with the Wolves claims. In the space of a week now, there’s been the reports of Wolves and €30m, Manchester United and €40m, and the Chinese offer.
Whilst it all looks like a not so subtle push on Besiktas, Mourinho’s interest is on record.
