Xherdan Shaqiri Tug of War Continues between Liverpool and Inter Milan

Although Inter Milan took a significant step towards boosting their available fire-power with the loan signing of Arsenal attacker Lukas Podolski, the Italian haven’t dropped out of the race for long term Liverpool target Xherdan Shaqiri and still hope to bring the Swiss star to the San Siro before the end of the month.

If we’ve learned anything in tracking the 23-year old — and let’s face it, transfers in general — over the past couple of years, it’s that no one knows for certain where he’s going to end up when the transfer window closes with conflicting stories running regularly in the media. While it looks like it’s just an old fashioned tug of war for his signature, if money is going to be the deciding factor, according to respected Italian journalist Tancredi Palmeri, the Reds just got the upper hand.

Liverpool are thought to be keen on a permanent transfer in January with a bid rumoured to be in the region of £12mil on the table. Inter, on the other hand, don’t have the financial resources available to do a straight cash deal right now and are instead looking to take him on loan for a small fee before making the move permanent during the summer. While you can problem flip a coin on which team he’d prefer to move to, apparently the Reds are willing to make it worth his while.

“Liverpool have outbid of 700k € the wages offered by Inter to Shaqiri” tweeted Palmeri yesterday amid reports that Shaqiri is set for showdown talks with Bayern Munich, who have already confirmed that they will listen to offers for him, on Wednesday. Although the Bavarian giants aren’t strapped for cash, it’s understood that they’d rather have a permanent deal done and dusted before the transfer window closes rather than waiting to finalize things over the summer.

Whether or not there’s any truth to that is, at this point, anyone’s guess…