Even Jürgen Klopp played into the narrative that Liverpool has suffered financially without Champions League football but the reality is clear in two different ways.
It has been an incredible couple of days on the transfer front for Liverpool. In a battle with Chelsea for the elite Brighton midfielder, Moisés Caicedo, and also the 19-year-old former Manchester City talent, Roméo Lavia, the twists and turns have just kept on coming.
There is, though, clearly a desire to spend money. The narrative that Liverpool is reluctant to do what needs to be done before the end of the transfer window has been proven incorrect with a clear statement of intent in terms of the bid for Caicedo.
The Reds were never reluctant to spend a little bit more on Lavia having seen three incrementally larger bids rejected because they were strapped for cash, but actually were trying to find the best value and avoid overpaying. Liverpool has not suddenly found more money to splash on Caicedo, but has decided that would be a move worth making even at double the price.
“We don’t play in the Champions League and nobody wants to hear it but for a club like Liverpool, it is a massive blow,” Jürgen Klopp outlined in the embargoed section of his pre-Chelsea press conference. “It is not cool. In the world we are living in, with teams with endless resources, no one wants to hear that either but they have and have different circumstances.”
The reality of the here and now for Liverpool, though, is that FSG sanctioned a British record $140m (£110m/€127m) bid for Moisés Caicedo. That does not speak to a club unwilling to go big, despite having spent not far off that much already on Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai.
An unexpected $66m (£52m/€60m) arrived from Saudi Arabia for Fabinho and Jordan Henderson, but the offer for the Ecuadorian is still a bold move that enters a transfer realm that the Reds have never been in before. In fact, it is more than any other British club has spent before on one player
Leave a Reply