Are you sure? The story I heard was that Mendes became his agent without ever meeting him (suggesting it was another change in representation driven by his entourage).
Anyway, that Pearce comment doesnt make sense. It wasnt the valuation that turned us off it was just that we didnt want him. So, WTF was our inquiry about then? To ask PSG if they thought he was shit?
âBonjour lads. Any idea who that Mbaye kids agent is so we can see what his deal is?â
âYour guess is as goods as ours but if you cam find out heâs yours for ÂŁ55m and a 200% sell-on fee.â
May be we are after Alvarez - lol. He can play on the wings right 
If Pearce just stopped for a second to think about it before he clicked âpostâ heâd know how stupid that sounds.
I dunno, i get the point heâs making. We asked about his availability, they told us what it was and what they wanted, we went ânaaaaahhhâ.
Inquiring is a fairly common part of the process, and makes sense that the club would ask multiple other clubs about players who fit the requirements. We know this window weâve sent out inquiries on Minteh, Mbaye, and Sarr to fill the same squad role. Based on the response received from Palace we skipped trying for Sarr, we didnât like the deal PSG wanted for Mbaye or didnât like the player enough so didnât bother bidding, and assumed Brighton being open to a transfer was the same as them being open to a transfer at a reasonable price so tried to sign him before learning they want 80 million for him.
Well, itâs all PR being fed through the internet bullshit machine, but the story that was doing the rounds when it looked like we were going to sign him was that the issues with his representation was all in the past as he is now in the bosom of the Mendes operation. That might have been fed to journalists in the same way Pearce has obviously been told that we were never interested in him anyway.
I dont know if this interpretation is from legit reporting or more just people inferring something that isnt there about what it must mean for him to have joined Mendes. This translation on Reddit is the story I saw reported from France several weeks back
https://www.reddit.com/r/LiverpoolFC/comments/1w0xwnt/interesting_article_about_mbayés_entourage/
Yeah, thatâs understandable. Although whether heâs met him or not, I really canât see Jorge Mendes putting up with any of that crap.
âŠthen it was about valuation, then.
Or all the other stuff thats come out about him and his entourage. Or the club view other targets as a better fitâŠ
Perhaps, but I think if they wanted to know about Mbayeâs non-football related issues, they wouldnât go to PSG. PSG is incentivized to make it seem like all is well on that front to justify their valuation. Theyâre not going to be like âMbayeâs entourage is a pain in the rear, pay us 70M for the opportunity to deal with it.â
Yes it feels like Pearce wanted to say we didnt go as far as submitting a formal bid that could be rejected, and said something else but what he says doesnt make sense
Surprised this hasnât been locked yet.
Aston Villa have agreed a ÂŁ47m deal to sign 18-year-old Paris St-Germain and Senegal winger Ibrahim Mbaye. (Mail)
Thereâs more hand-wringing to be done yet.
I know absolutely nothing about this kid as a player other than his name so I cannot possibly be disappointed.
Letâs see what else is out there, if itâs not Minteh.
Yeah Iâm not massively concerned about this, guess we will see what we could have won so to speak.