Liverpool might feel as though it is back to square one in the transfer market at the minute. While Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister looked to have got the midfield rebuild well on track, Saudi Arabia has taken a sledgehammer to that assessment.
Should slated moves for Jordan Henderson and Fabinho come to pass, Liverpool would find itself needing to buy a further two midfielders. In particular, a direct starting replacement for the Brazilian would be a matter of urgency, with no senior defensive presence currently on the books.
Jörg Schmadtke and Jürgen Klopp may have received some inadvertent help in that regard, with a Premier League rival potentially identifying an ideal candidate. The price being quoted could be met in its entirety from the anticipated Fabinho proceeds.
But that’s a rarity, with the majority of transfer fees being bandied about at the minute only serving to confirm the masterstroke that Liverpool has already pulled off this window. Whatever happens for the rest of the summer, one piece of business will be hard to top.
Here are the two Liverpool.com stories from today that you shouldn’t miss.
Liverpool transfer brilliance confirmed
One player Liverpool will seemingly not be going for as it looks to replace Fabinho is Moisés Caicedo, with Sky Sports’ Melissa Reddy reporting he is ‘not on the list’. But Chelsea very much does hold a concrete interest in the Brighton man.
Indeed, The Athletic reports that the Blues recently submitted a second transfer bid of $92m (£70m/€82m) — and saw it rejected. That’s a staggering amount of money for a player who only just enjoyed his breakthrough Premier League season.
Yet that’s the way the transfer market is going. In spite of this, Liverpool managed to use a release clause to get Mac Allister out of the very same club for exactly half that amount, which is looking more and more like an incredible bargain.
Indeed, The Athletic reports that the Blues recently submitted a second transfer bid of $92m (£70m/€82m) — and saw it rejected. That’s a staggering amount of money for a player who only just enjoyed his breakthrough Premier League season
Along with Caicedo, a certain Declan Rice would probably have featured on the list of ‘ideal’ Fabinho heirs at the start of the transfer window. Of course, at the time, Liverpool did not know it would be losing the Brazilian — more or less ruling out a push for any truly marquee targets.
This week, Rice has finally completed his long-anticipated move to Arsenal. And that has set in motion a chain of events that could lead Liverpool to a good transfer alternative, with West Ham now in the market for a replacement.
The Hammers are targeting Edson Álvarez, with a $46m (£35m/€41m) bid possibly in the offing. The same traits that would make him a good Rice heir would serve him well replacing Fabinho, with a potentially ideal successor to the Brazilian ‘accidentally’ flagged up
