Liverpool and Chelsea to battle over Pedro and Salah

Liverpool are once again flush with cash and thus, are being linked to a whole host of transfer targets.  While it sounds like they may spend the vast majority of the Sterling money on Christian Benteke's £32.5m release clause*, some sources have them also looking at a certain Barcelona winger who's been popping up on the Chelsea radar as well.

Pedro Rodriguez still defoliating Daisy about their future.

-source: SPORT via Google Translate

Excuse me, he's doing what now?!

So it's once again SPORT who are at the forefront of the Pedro rumors and his flower-torturing habits.  And while he was included in Barcelona's preseason touring squad and trained without "novelty" on Wednesday, the rumblings of him leaving haven't subsided.  They are however biding their time until the Barcelona election results are in, especially since the Laporta-Abidal ticket used (attempting to) keep him as a campaign promise.

While Liverpool could certainly afford to pay Pedro's release clause as well, they are also supposedly looking at cheaper options, including our very own Mohamed Salah.  Salah of course was pretty close to joining the Reds before opting for Chelsea 18 months ago.  With the young winger not included in our traveling squad to the USA, his future most certainly lies away from Stamford Bridge.  Rumors so far had him linked almost exclusively to other, non-purple Italian clubs, but could he conceivably stay in England instead?  I guess that might depend in part on whether we want to continue our generosity and goodwill in business with regards to our rivals (see: Sturridge, Mata, Cech).

* Incidentally, it sounds like we did in fact inquire about Benteke earlier this summer, but then chose to go with the older, cheaper, crappier option.