Liverpool Retain Rio Ngumoha Amid Gakpo's Potential Exit

Liverpool are digging in over one of their brightest prospects just as another high‑profile attacker edges towards the exit.

Rio Ngumoha, the 17-year-old winger who has turned heads across Europe, is no longer for sale. Bayern Munich have been circling, identifying the teenager as a prime candidate for their left flank this summer, but Liverpool have shut the door.

TEAMtalk’s transfer insider Graeme Bailey reports that the club have “no plans whatsoever” to let Ngumoha go in this window. Instead, Liverpool intend to sit down with the former Chelsea youngster and discuss a new contract, a clear sign of how sharply his status has risen since arriving in 2024.

That marks a significant shift. The Secret Scout, a well-followed account on X, detailed how Liverpool were initially open to the idea of selling Ngumoha on to a European club with a buy-back style option, expecting him to split his time between the under-18s and under-21s. Then the performances came.

Week after week, Ngumoha impressed to the point that, according to the same report, it would now take a “huge” fee to even bring Liverpool to the table. Internally, he is viewed as “one of the best wingers in the world” in terms of potential. Bayern and other elite sides may admire from afar, but the message from Anfield is blunt: not this summer.

While one winger’s path appears to run through Merseyside for the long term, another’s could be about to veer away.

Cody Gakpo, according to Dutch outlet Soccer News, now wants to leave Liverpool. The report claims that, after Fenway Sports Group’s decision to sack Arne Slot before he had even taken charge and move instead for Andoni Iraola, the Netherlands international is ready to look elsewhere.

Tottenham Hotspur are said to hold “serious interest” in Gakpo and are already working behind the scenes on a plan to persuade both player and club. For Spurs, it is an opportunity: a versatile forward in his prime, unsettled by managerial upheaval at Anfield. For Liverpool, it is a test of resolve at a time when Iraola has barely begun to shape the squad in his image.

Midfield Reshaping

That reshaping is already being mapped out in midfield.

Liverpool are weighing up a £40 million offer for Bournemouth’s Alex Scott, a player Iraola knows intimately from their time together on the south coast. Journalist Jamie Dickenson reported on X that the Cherries value the 22-year-old at £60m, a figure that reflects both his influence at club level and his rapid rise onto the international stage.

Scott is currently in Miami with Thomas Tuchel’s England squad and is expected to make his Three Lions debut in a friendly against New Zealand, fresh from a standout campaign for Bournemouth. He is not short of admirers. Manchester United are monitoring him, while Tottenham – the club he supported as a boy – are also keeping tabs.

Liverpool, though, have a unique card to play: Iraola himself. The Spaniard could make Scott his first signing at Anfield, reuniting with a midfielder he already trusts to run a game and accelerate the pressing style he favours.

The club’s recruitment net is cast wider than Scott. Liverpool are also credited with interest in £100m-rated RB Leipzig winger Yan Diomande, a reminder that, even with Ngumoha protected, the search for elite wide talent continues. At the same time, Iraola will be under pressure to maximise last summer’s £415m splurge on the likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez and others, a spend that still demands full justification on the pitch.

So the picture is clear, if complicated. A teenage winger once earmarked as a tradable asset has forced a rethink and is now central to Liverpool’s plans. A senior attacker, signed to be part of the club’s next great forward line, is contemplating a move to London. A young English midfielder, flourishing under Iraola at Bournemouth, could be the first building block of a new-look engine room.

Anfield has chosen its future in Ngumoha. The next question is whether Gakpo and Scott will be part of it.