Aston Villa hijacks Liverpool's move for PSG star Ibrahim Mbaye
Liverpool have spent the summer tracking Ibrahim Mbaye as a safety net. Now the safety net has gone – and it’s gone to a direct Premier League rival.
The Reds kept the 18-year-old Paris Saint-Germain winger in their back pocket while they pushed ahead with a blockbuster move for Bradley Barcola. Mbaye was the contingency plan if anything went wrong. On Thursday, Liverpool finally received the green light for Barcola’s £100 million move to Anfield. That was the moment Aston Villa struck.
Villa, armed with fresh money from a string of high-profile sales, moved quickly to agree a €55 million (£47m/$64m) fee with PSG, stealing in for a player Liverpool had courted for months. What had looked like a straight line from Paris to Merseyside suddenly bent towards Birmingham.
Villa’s bold play
The deal, confirmed by David Ornstein of The Athletic on Friday, underlines the scale of Villa’s rebuild and their new financial clout. The Europa League winners have cashed in heavily this summer: Ollie Watkins has gone to Al Hilal, Ezri Konsa to Arsenal, Youri Tielemans to Manchester United, Emiliano Martinez to Chelsea, Lucas Digne to PSG, while Tammy Abraham is expected to join Ipswich Town. Rogers has also departed for Manchester City.
Those exits have funded a sweeping overhaul. Jordi Manzambi has arrived from Freiburg, Alejandro Garnacho from Chelsea, Zion Suzuki from Parma, Joao Gomes from Wolves, Matteo Ruggeri from Atletico Madrid, Leon Goretzka from Bayern Munich and Aaron Wan-Bissaka from West Ham, among others. Mbaye now joins that wave as the statement attacking signing.
Villa have monitored the Senegal international since January, but until this week they looked like outsiders. Liverpool’s long-standing interest and PSG’s valuation gap with the Reds kept the deal in limbo. Once Barcola’s path to Anfield cleared, Mbaye’s became clear too – just not in the direction Liverpool expected.
Liverpool left without their fallback
For Liverpool, the timing is awkward. Barcola’s move may be advanced, but it is not done. The forward is still awaiting a medical and the club has yet to officially confirm him as their latest attacking addition. If any late problem emerges, the Reds will find themselves short of the alternative they had so carefully lined up.
Negotiations for Mbaye had already hit a familiar snag. RMC Sport reported last week that Liverpool and PSG were far apart on the teenager’s value, just as they were at stages in the Barcola talks. PSG are understood to have wanted closer to £60m ($82m) for Mbaye, while Liverpool rated him at around £43m ($59m). In the end, he goes to Villa for €55m ($64m), a figure that sits far nearer Liverpool’s internal valuation than PSG’s original stance.
That will only add to the frustration at Anfield. A long-term scouting job, months of groundwork, and a price point they were comfortable with – all of it now benefits a club they will be battling for European places.
PSG lose a prodigy, Villa gain a livewire
Mbaye’s rise in Paris has been rapid. He joined PSG in 2018 as a 10-year-old from FC Versailles 78, the same suburban club where Thierry Henry played before moving to Monaco. From there, Mbaye climbed through the ranks to become one of the most highly regarded prospects in the French champions’ academy.
In 2024 he broke into Luis Enrique’s first team, making 39 appearances for the two-time reigning Champions League winners. At 16, he became the youngest player ever to start a competitive match for PSG, a record that underlined how highly the club rated his potential.
His impact has not been limited to club football. Mbaye was part of Senegal’s squad at the 2026 World Cup, used as a rotation option but still sharp enough to score against France in the group stage. That goal thrust him onto the global radar and accelerated interest from Europe’s elite.
His omission from Enrique’s bench for PSG’s opening Ligue 1 game this season was the clearest signal yet that a move was close. Speculation around his future grew, Liverpool stayed in the conversation, and then Villa stepped through the door PSG had opened.
Now Mbaye swaps the Parc des Princes for Villa Park, a Champions League-winning academy product joining a club freshly crowned Europa League champions, in a league where Liverpool thought he would be wearing their red, not claret and blue.
The question now is simple: will Barcola arrive cleanly enough for Liverpool to forget the one that got away, or will Mbaye’s bursts down the right flank in a Villa shirt become a recurring reminder of an opportunity that slipped across the Midlands?
