Leverkusen Set Palacios Price as Town Bid Rejected
Tuesday, 11th Aug 2026 16:03

Bayer Leverkusen are reported to want €35 million (£29.9 million) for Argentina midfielder Exequiel Palacios.

Over the weekend, it emerged that Town had made an offer for the 27-year-old having initially been linked earlier in the month.

Now, according to Argentinian newspaper La Nacion, that bid has been rebuffed by last season’s sixth-placed Bundesliga side, who are said to be looking for €35 million for the World Cup winner.

As previously reported by Germany-based Bild, Palacios sees himself playing for a larger club than Town, so even if the Blues were to offer a sum which is acceptable to Leverkusen, there would be no guarantee that the player would sign.

Four other clubs are believed to be interested with RB Leipzig having previously been linked.

Palacios, who began his career with River Plate in his home country, won the World Cup in 2022 and was in the side which lost this year’s final last month. In total, he has won 41 full caps.

He is contracted to Leverkusen, with whom he won the Bundesliga in 2023/24, until the summer of 2030.

Photo: Stefan Koops - EYE4IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Bazza8564 added 16:09 - Aug 11 Difficult to quantify this without knowing how much we have bid, i can't imagine we would have offered under £20m. Im sceptical that he would come, but let's see what plays out..
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BotesdaleBlue added 16:09 - Aug 11 Steer clear I would say. Too expensive for Town at this stage of our journey and certainly don't like the 'big club only' vibes.
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Blooos added 16:10 - Aug 11 Surely if he isn’t interested in coming here we wouldn’t bid??
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billlm added 16:13 - Aug 11 Not worth that move on,
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Monkey_Blue added 16:15 - Aug 11

Not worth the price for the baggage. People make say he wasn’t fighting after the final whistle or commiting dozens of infantino sanctioned fouls, but he was part of the group displaying the Falklands flag. This isn’t me saying that’s some kind of cardinal sin… we just don’t need the circus that will come with a player who will be booed everytime he touches the ball by opposition fans. If We are paying £25-£30m for another defensive midfielder surely there are other options without a drop in quality. Ashton was happy to have Farage at the club so suspect his growing narcissism makes him think he can do anything. Also do we need more than 3 DM’s? Unless the plan is to have no No8 in the middle and just park the bus?

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PutneyBlue added 16:16 - Aug 11 I think we have to beware taking the Bild article as representative of tge player's views, rather than his agent's. Bild isn't exactly top not h journalism
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trevski_s added 16:20 - Aug 11

Depends on how much we offered, if we put in around £25 million I would think Town might be willing to bump up the extra little bit especially if they see him as a guaranteed starter. I don't buy the whole "big club only" remark, I just think that was paper or agent talk to try drum up more business. There's no harm in going for him as then we would know during the contract stage if he wanted to join or not

muccletonjoe added 16:22 - Aug 11 Lets concentrate on what we can get.
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Vancouver_Blue added 16:24 - Aug 11 Not overly keen. Haven't watched Leverkusen, so don't know.
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tractorboybig added 16:25 - Aug 11 no loss there is better at a lot less
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blues1 added 16:26 - Aug 11 Blooos. Meant to up mark u, not down mark you. Exactly, why would we bid if we knew he wouldnt want to come. Too many fans believe everything they read from those sites.
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RetroBlue added 16:26 - Aug 11 He's never fit by all accounts. Move on
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blues1 added 16:27 - Aug 11 Tractorboybig. Really? Better at a lot less? Dont think so somehow.
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DocMartyn added 16:29 - Aug 11 Suspect his wages would be more of a blocker than the fee.
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DocMartyn added 16:31 - Aug 11 Just looked it up, £124K a week, no chance....
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Bluedocker added 16:38 - Aug 11 If we want to have a chance to stay up then I think we need to sign a couple of players for around 30/35 mill one being an experienced striker... And that's not really a high transfer fees for players these days..
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urbanpenguin added 16:38 - Aug 11 You just looked it up, DocMartyn - what's the website that lists all players' salaries? that sounds very GDPR non-compliant.
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Jugsy added 16:43 - Aug 11 I think this is a play, a public act to show some other targets that we have our eyes on big prizes. It will help us negotiate with other players, either to drive prices closer to our evaluation or to demonstrate ambition.
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Marcus added 17:06 - Aug 11 Argentina's antics aren't that relevant, it's about the individual talent. Who would have rejected Maradona after the 'hand of God' goal? If he wants to join and an agreement is made then all good, beyond that is media speculation and agent talk.
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DocMartyn added 17:13 - Aug 11 @urbanpenguin Just a ballpark figure, obtained from an aggregator that takes in insider info, agent leaks, etc. If it's even vaguely correct then it's still way outside our envelope.
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jas0999 added 17:20 - Aug 11 He’s not likely to join us.
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Len_Brennan added 17:23 - Aug 11

We did make bids for both Hackney & Marcel Ruiz last Summer, despite neither being keen to come here, which resulted in both players rejecting us after their respective clubs had agreed deals. Same with Fotis Ioannidis.
He wants a bigger club, fair enough, but if nobody else comes in for him with an acceptable bid, maybe he'd change his mind the way Dara O'Shea ultimately did.

notoriousITFC added 17:24 - Aug 11

He would be an incredible acquisition. Quite amusing people reading the 'big club only' talk and 'not worth that'. This guys is an elite player, it's exactly who town should be targeting. The reality is, the gap between us and the established premier league teams is huge. It's only going to be shortened with high calibre new additions to the squad.

Come on ITFC fans, embrace change. That is what Premier football brings I'm afraid. It does unfortunately mean saying goodbye to some of the players that have got us to this position and served us so well.

notoriousITFC added 17:25 - Aug 11 Let's also remind people that we were paying McKenna £90k per week. We have money to spend here.
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tetchris added 17:32 - Aug 11 Even with the salary reduction he has agreed to due to the lack of champions league football you are still looking at over £90k a week which is way too much to pay one player in only our second season in the PL for over 20 years. If town become a regular PL side like Brentford, Bournemouth etc. then we can look to sign players who demand this level of wage.
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