Liverpool’s hopes of landing Alex Teixeira this month may not yet be dead, according to respected Eastern European journalist, Artur Petrosyan.

The Reds have been chasing the in-form Brazilian attacker over the course of the past week, and have already had an offer of £24.5m knocked back by Shakhtar Donetsk.

And their hopes of landing the free-scoring South American – he’s netted 22 goals in 15 league matches this season – appeared to take a massive hit this morning, with the Ukrainian club’s CEO, Sergei Palkin, having claimed that only a release clause triggering offer of £53m will be enough to convince the club to sell before Monday’s transfer deadline, despite previous suggestions that their valuation sits at £39m.

In the aftermath of these comments, Petrosyan took to Twitter to question the Shakhtar chief’s stance:

“Palkin also said that Lucescu wants to keep him too. Although the manager said he has no intention to keep Teixeira against his will.

“In other words, it just proves that they're waiting for a much improved offer from Liverpool. Somewhere between £27m (last offer) and £53m (buyout).

“And no, he didn't sound convincing when talking about his will to keep Teixeira. They simply want more money.”

Petrosyan even went on to query the legitimacy of Palkin’s claims that Teixeira’s release clause is £53m:

“Plus, I very much doubt they put a €70m (£53m) buyout in Teixeira's contract when he re-signed in 2013. His transfer price was around €10m (£7.6m) back then.”

Petrosyan references comments Mircea Lucescu made to FourFourTwo regarding not wanting to keep Teixeira against his will, while the player himself has already spoken of his desire to join Liverpool.

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