A look at the highest spenders in this summer’s transfer market is pretty eye-opening.
Chelsea currently lead the way on £193m, with West Ham next on £179m. Nottingham Forest are in third on £152m with Manchester United behind them on £141m. United are set to go to the very top of this list once they complete the £90m signing of Anthony, which is imminent.
Liverpool have spent £77m on Darwin Nunez, Fabio Carvalho and Calvin Ramsay, but this has been practically all covered by the sales of Sadio Mane, Neco Williams, Taki Minamino, Ben Davies and Marko Grujic, whose move to FC Porto officially went through this summer in a financial sense.
I’ve never been one to moan at FSG for their limited investment in the squad in terms of raw transfer fees. After all, the point of buying players is to create a good football team, and Liverpool have been one of the two or three best football teams in the world over the past five years.
When we do buy someone, we nail it. There should be no jealously from Liverpool fans regarding United’s haphazard recruitment strategy. Why win the transfer market when you can win actual trophies instead, right?
And Liverpool are coming off a season in which we won two cups and very nearly a quadruple that would surely have cemented this current side as the greatest in English football history. My point being: they’re already pretty good and less needs to be done than the people who consistently moan about it suggest.
But while I’ve got no time for the whingers; the entitled never-been-to-Anfield lot who live for the market and consider the actual season an afterthought; I do listen to what Jurgen Klopp says.
And Klopp wants a new midfielder. This is unequivocal. We knew it back in June when Liverpool bid for Aurelien Tchouameni, and we definitely know it now the manager has loudly spoken out on the matter.
“If it is the right player, we need him,” Klopp said, cited in the Mail.
“That changed, of course. I know we have had this discussion since it all started and I am the one who said we don’t need a midfielder and you were all right and I was wrong. That’s the situation.
“Now, we go for a midfielder.”
For Klopp to be so open about the club attempting to complete a transfer is rare. He almost always keeps his cards close to his chest and says he’s happy with the options at his disposal. This is a technique to install confidence into his own squad, but also to let selling clubs know we’re not desperate…
But the truth is, with Thiago, Curtis Jones, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain injured, and Jordan Henderson and James Milner past their best, we are desperate – and Klopp openly telling the media and therefore the fans that he wants a new signing puts the ball in the court of his owners and sporting director Julian Ward.
Perhaps Klopp is partly to blame here, too. If he’d had this attitude earlier in the window, we’d have had more time to get someone in, but he’s not perfect and happily admits to the fact. He’s still the best manager in the world, though and should be treated as such by his bosses.
Virgil van Dijk has even proclaimed the necessity for a new midfielder, showing the players are keen for a new body in this position, too.
“Midfielders are the engine of our team. They win so many balls for us. We need a lot of midfielders. You see the games we play, we also rotate a lot in midfield, apart from Fab I think. We need everyone,” the Dutchman told the Echo.
So, Klopp has felt the need to challenge his owners to get him an elite midfielder before the deadline closes on Thursday. Now, they must deliver.
If it wasn’t for Klopp, the arguments against FSG would be significantly louder. With their limited spending, it’s unlikely any other manager on the planet, Pep Guardiola included, would have been able to win every major trophy available in the past four seasons. Appointing Klopp was the best thing they ever did as owners, but it was also a stroke of luck, that’s not only made them millions but saved them from having to spend it, too.
Now, Klopp has asked for a new midfielder and they need to get him one, even if it requires a big transfer fee.
Frenkie de Jong seems an obvious possibility. Available from Barcelona, who need to offload his wages, de Jong would add composure, technical skills and an ability to burst through the lines of our midfield. He’s probably the player on the market most similar to Thiago.
His wages would be enormous; close to Mo Salah as our highest earner, but at 25-years-old, we’d have de Jong for his best years and be able to focus on Jude Bellingham next summer.
Liverpool could convince him to join, too. Moises Caicedo is well-liked, as I explained beforehand, but Brighton are demanding silly money given how late it is in the window and that Yves Bissouma left for Spurs early in the summer.
I don’t know much about Manu Kone, but if he’s the player Klopp and the scouting department want, we should pay the money.
Really, we should be making a bullish attempt to acquire Nico Barella, a midfielder Klopp adores, from Inter Milan.
But time is running out. Klopp has made his play: he has asked for a new signing in an area that should have been strengthened last summer anyway. The powers that be need to recognise how lucky they are to have him and open their chequebook.