Reports of the demise of Liverpool’s agile and best-in-class transfer strategy have, it seems, been exaggerated.
A £37million deal for PSV Eindhoven’s Cody Gakpo, the much-coveted Holland forward who starred in the World Cup, has fired the starting pistol on the January transfer window and sent a resounding message about blood red intentions for the rest of the season.
Of all the clubs jostling for position at the upper end of English football, it is Liverpool have been most buffeted by circumstances recently. The imminent departures of director of research Ian Graham and director of football Julian Ward, who is leaving for personal reasons, have left a void in their transfer brains trust and followed Fenway Sports Group’s decision to explore potential exit routes. The club is up for sale.
But if the fear was that would paralyse Liverpool in the January transfer window and beyond, those concerns are misplaced.
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Gakpo is an excellent signing for a club who recognised 18 months ago that their forward line needed a reset with the lucrative contracts of Sadio Mane, Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino all moving towards the final few months. Mane has since gone but Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez, a work-in-progress brimming with potential, have been added. Gakpo completes the set and like Nunez is just 23. While the temptation is to paint this as Liverpool spiking the guns of rivals Manchester United, this is clearly a long-term plan being put into fruition, unaffected by external changes.
It’s understood the outgoing Ward was at the forefront of things again, just as he was in the lightening quick move to bring Diaz in last January as Tottenham prepared to make their move. Once again Liverpool have done the spadework in the shadows, beginning negotiations with PSV before the end of the World Cup and securing a deal days before the January transfer window opens.
i understands he will even be available for their 2 January trip to Brentford if the formalities on the deal, which could eventually be worth up to £50m with add-ons, are completed swiftly.
All of that suggests that FSG’s promise not to take their eye off the ball as they cast the net for a potential sale should be taken at face value.
One Premier League executive told i last week that Liverpool were the club many inside the game were watching this month to see how ownership uncertainty would impact their ambitions. It was, the source noted, a convenient excuse if they had effectively written off their Champions League hopes by not investing in the New Year.
Instead this will add a spring to the collective step. They are just five points from Spurs, remain in Champions League contention and are now adding one of European football’s most deadly finishers to their arsenal. Crisis, what crisis?
Gakpo’s arrival does not solve Liverpool’s issues at a stroke. It is midfield where they are under-powered and the litmus test of their continued ability to mix it with elite of the world game comes this summer when they attempt to prise Jude Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund.
i has been told by sources in Germany that “no decision” has been made on Bellingham’s future, including potential price tag and his eventual destination. It’s understood Manchester City, as well as Real Madrid and Manchester United retain interest in a player who has the potential to become the game’s outstanding midfielder in the years to come.
Liverpool believe they are significant players in the race for Bellingham’s signature and Klopp’s lovebombing of Bellingham over the Christmas weekend was no coincidence. He is the player they want and the man who they are deploying long-term plans to try and get.
As the Gakpo deal proves, only a fool would write them off.
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