Liverpool are the only Premier League side yet to make a signing this summer but they are intent on ‘ignoring outside noise’ from concerned supporters.
For those Three Lions-supporting Liverpool fans who do not fully subscribe to the ‘Scouse, not English’ mantra, this has been a sub-optimal summer. After Gareth Southgate and his players spent a month reducing legitimate tactical concerns at the Euros to mere “external noise”, the Michael Edwards motto of ‘ignoring outside noise’ has been used to justify a lack of Anfield incomings.
Liverpool remain the only Premier League club yet to make a signing this summer. The creeping belief is that they will welcome a fair few Like A New Signings instead. And they should absolutely own it: get a picture of Arne Slot in the stands with his arms around Sepp van den Berg, Fabio Carvalho, Stefan Bajcetic and the new No. 10 version of Harvey Elliott, all holding bits of a comically long Liverpool scarf or something. Press conference unveilings, social media announcements, in-house interviews about how the manager convinced them of the project, the lot.
Slot has been unmoving in his public evaluations of the situation. He wants to properly assess the squad before making any decisions over what it does and doesn’t need. He has frequently praised the quality of the group he inherited, reiterating that new signings would have to match that high standard. And ultimately, as head coach, he will relish working with what he is given; that was part of why his credentials appealed to Liverpool.
MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE FROM F365
👉 Liverpool in ‘flop’ year, Arsenal second again, Martin sack: Early Premier League predictions
👉 Liverpool boss Slot reacts to win over Arsenal as he is ‘a bit hard on’ one standout performer
Richard Hughes has sung from a similar hymn sheet and it is worth pointing out that perhaps this period of apparent stagnation was both unavoidable and probably entirely necessary. Liverpool have not only changed managers but appointed a new sporting director too in the same summer, neither having experienced this level of club before. The handovers in power from Edwards to Julian Ward and then Jorg Schmadtke underlined how difficult one element of that transition can be; the change after nearly nine years of Jurgen Klopp’s leadership was never going to be seamless.
But it is tough to shake the sense that even if Liverpool are not taking any steps back, those around them are at least attempting strides forward. Manchester City have lost no relevant part of their champion squad and added a wonderful winger in Savinho. Arsenal are in the process of ruthlessly upgrading their excellent starting XI again with Riccardo Calafiori and Mikel Merino. Aston Villa, Totteham, Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester United, members of the chasing pack behind what was a distant top three, have all made significant moves with the implication of more to come.
Perhaps these last few weeks of the window are when Liverpool will accelerate their plans. Hughes was speaking about the business of all teams in general when predicting “a crescendo in August” but he must have known that would carry an expectation from fans for it to translate to his own dealings. A rejected bid for Wataru Endo, the loan departures of Calvin Ramsay and Fabian Mrozek and the collapsed £120m deal with Newcastle which was likely always too precarious to pull off will sate no appetites.
While there is no suggestion Liverpool need to make sales before signings in the same way as their PSR-panicking counterparts, the lack of wheel-greasing exits does feel like a factor. If Gordon is the sort of transfer they desire – a high level in terms of both player quality and difficulty to execute – then outgoings become crucial. It might be a touch too far to describe their struggles to sell players for incredible value as a weakness but it is certainly no longer their industry-leading strength.
The only meaningful fees the Reds received last summer were from Saudi Arabia for Fabinho and Jordan Henderson. They were not the only team to exploit that Middle East cheat code but without it there is a distinct lack of suitors queuing up to spend vast sums on Liverpool players quite like they used to.
Van den Berg is valued at £20m – five times his amount of career appearances for the club – and Nathaniel Phillips, who has been bouncing around on loan for years, will set clubs back £8m. Asking for £25m for Caiomhin Kelleher actually seems a little low when probable fourth-choice centre-half and full-back back-up Joe Gomez is known to be priced at £45m and bit-part player Carvalho, according to recent reports, would cost ‘a considerable fee’.
What Liverpool might need is an early Premier League-era Bournemouth: a team blinded by seeing ‘Liverpool’ on a CV and thus willing to pay that premium. Extracting more than £40m from the Cherries for the most peripheral of options in Jordon Ibe, Brad Smith and Dominic Solanke basically secured Edwards his future statue outside Anfield and a job for life with FSG.
Liverpool, quite foolishly, have appointed in Hughes one of the most happily frequent meeters of those asking prices.
The loss of that stream of steady income for disposable squad players, the complications of major international tournaments and monumental boardroom transformation has put Liverpool in a disadvantageous position. And this is not like the misguided existential fan crisis of summer 2019, when supporters panicked over the recruitment of two fringe teenagers and a pair of back-up goalkeepers when other teams invested heavily. The inaccurate perception then was that the club had wasted an opportunity by failing to build on solid foundations; it feels like the reality now.
The only thing Liverpool seem to have properly constructed this summer is a siege mentality, the doubling-down in trying to defend their passive transfer window serving only to reinforce the frustrations of a disgruntled support. It almost worked for England but that doesn’t feel like a sensible precedent to follow.
READ NEXT: Five times Liverpool failed with club-record transfers after Gordon medical and Van Dijk apology