David Alaba Open to Premier League Move With Liverpool & Man City Interested
By Tom Gott
Exclusive - Bayern Munich defender David Alaba is open to a move to the Premier League, having previously told suitors he was not interested in a switch to the English top flight.
The 28-year-old has entered the final year of his contract at the Allianz Arena and is yet to agree on an extension, with director Hasan Salihamidzic recently suggesting that the Austrian is likely to walk away at the end of the season.
There is no shortage of interest in Alaba. In the Premier League, Liverpool and Manchester City monitored the Austrian during the summer, only to be rebuffed because Alaba was not interested in heading to England.
His focus was rumoured to be on either Real Madrid or Barcelona, but a source has confirmed to 90min that Alaba is no longer firmly against the idea of heading to the England's top tier should he leave Bayern.
It's something Alaba has alluded to in the past. Back in February, when asked whether a move to England would interest him, he told The Times: "We'll see. I know the Premier League very well because I followed it a lot when I was younger. I supported Arsenal. Patrick Vieira was one of my favourite players.
“At the moment I don’t think too much about it but I can imagine playing somewhere else. I am very focused on Bayern Munich. We really want to reach our goals and I really want to help the team.”
Both Liverpool and City would be keen on bringing Alaba over to the Premeir League, although the two sides have concerns over just how committed to leaving Bayern Alaba truly is.
Sky Sports News recently reported that Alaba is in no rush to leave the German giants and he intends to reject any opportunities to move in January, and that stance has left the two English sides feeling as though he may still be on the fence.
A source told 90min: “He is a player any club in the world would love, and Liverpool and City have made it known that if he wants to come to England they will be interested, but they have made it clear they don’t want to be involved if he does not want to come to play in the Premier League.”
Real Madrid continue to be seen as the favourites to land Alaba, but with Los Blancos' focus on other blockbuster signings like Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe and Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland, a move to the Santiago Bernabeu for Alaba is by no means a certainty.