FSG £200m transfer decision has sent Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp back five years

FSG £200m transfer decision has sent Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp back five years

Liverpool have had a net spend of almost £100m this summer – but it’s not close to being the highest in the Premier League

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ByIan DoyleChief Liverpool FC Writer
01:00, 6 SEP 2023
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Liverpool owner John Henry and manager Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool owner John Henry and manager Jurgen Klopp
Al-Ittihad would love to believe otherwise, but Liverpool’s transfer business has now concluded for the summer.

And with it provides an opportunity to reflect on the extent Fenway Sports Group were prepared to back Jurgen Klopp’s overhaul of his midfield.

Certainly, the need for change that became apparent during a disappointing previous campaign was made more pressing by the expected departures on free transfers of James Milner, Naby Keita, Roberto Firmino and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, along with the return to parent club Juventus of loanee Arthur Melo. And it was heightened by the later exits of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson to Saudi Arabia.

By then, Liverpool had already recruited Alexis Mac Allister from Brighton and Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig, with Wataru Endo later following from Stuttgart after failed attempts to sign Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia. Ryan Gravenberch, who had been a target throughout the transfer window, was finally taken from Bayern Munich shortly before last Friday’s deadline.

READ MORE: Stefan Bajcetic has noticed a big change at Liverpool after ‘tough’ setback

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In total, assuming add-ons are realised, Liverpool have invested £151m on their four new midfielders. Never before has there been such an extensive reconfiguration of one specific area of the team during a single transfer window although snapping up strikers Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll in reaction to Fernando Torres being sold on deadline day in January 2011 remains a benchmark, similar to signing goalkeepers Jerzy Dudek and Chris Kirkland on the same day in 2001.

With £52m having been raised from the sales of Fabinho and Henderson, it brings the overall net spend to just shy of £100m. And that’s a figure that has only been surpassed once in a transfer window during FSG’s time at the club, when the balance sheet saw them shell out a net spend of £136m in 2018.

That summer, Liverpool had money left over from the £142m accrued from the sale of Phillipe Coutinho to Barcelona the previous January and spent more than £100m on the last midfield rebuild, with Fabinho and Naby Keita joined by an attacking option in Xherdan Shaqiri. Goalkeeper Alisson Becker, though, was the big-money signing in that window, costing £65m from Roma.

Of course, we all know what happened next, the new arrivals – along with that of Virgil van Dijk earlier in the year – helping Liverpool take the final step to become champions of Europe, then the world and finally, after a 30-year wait, England.

Klopp will no doubt hope this summer proves as equally transformative, with the early signs from the opening four games indicating Liverpool are in a position where they can build on their strong sprint to the finish line last term.

The latest transfer window continues the trend in recent years for FSG to commit to an increasing amount of money on signings. The net spend has gone from £38m in 2020/21, to £43m the following season, £72m last campaign and £99m so far this. In the last six years, the total net spend stands at just over £350m. That the summer outlay has come at a time when Liverpool have missed out on Champions League riches for the first time in seven years – while bedding in yet another sporting director in Jorg Schmadtke – suggests there is an acceptance the Reds cannot afford to fail to qualify for a second successive year.

So, notwithstanding any late moves from the Saudi Pro League ahead of their transfer deadline on Thursday, how does Liverpool’s net spend this summer compare to their Premier League rivals?

Liverpool net spending under Jurgen Klopp and Fenway Sports Group
Critics of FSG won’t be surprised to discover the Reds don’t even rank in the top seven. Chelsea lead the way as Todd Boehly continues to splash the cash with a net spend of around £165m, a significant distance ahead of Arsenal and then Manchester United. Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and, unexpectedly, Bournemouth are next, all hovering slightly above the £100m mark. Then come Liverpool narrowly ahead of top-four rivals Newcastle United, with West Ham, Everton, Wolves and Brighton the only clubs to boast a positive net spend.

In the five seasons since the last major splurge in 2018, Liverpool have an overall net spend of around £220m that ranks them way down in the list of moneybags rivals.

Using figures supplied by transfermarkt, Chelsea have the highest net spend of £670m, more than three times that of the Reds over the same period and largely bolstered by Boehly’s spend during the last 15 months. Again, Manchester United (£597m) and Arsenal (£550m) are not far behind, with Tottenham (£435m) and Newcastle (£414m) next and then Manchester City (£316m). But also ahead of the Reds are Aston Villa (£310m) and West Ham (£247m). Nottingham Forest have a similar net spend to Liverpool, of which most was totalled last summer.

Context, though, is everything. Manchester City and Liverpool were already building from a strong base – they were Premier League champions and European Cup holders respectively at the start of this period in June 2019 – and haven’t needed quite as much work on their squads as many of their rivals, at least until recently. Indeed, the lead spenders are all clubs who have been attempting to consistently bridge the gap to the duo.

But that Villa and West Ham are also high on the list underlines splashing the cash alone isn’t enough. How it is spent, and how the players are then used, are sometimes just as important. Beyond doubt, though, is the greater the funds, the greater the options.

Liverpool, though, clearly had one approach in mind this summer. “It is not the biggest squad in the world, that is true, but we had to make a decision in our situation,” said Klopp last month. “Do we go for quantity or quality? The only chance we really had was to go for quality.”

The Reds didn’t get every player they wanted. Jude Bellingham fell by the wayside long before the transfer window opened, while Caicedo and Lavia went to Chelsea and defender Levi Colwill opted to stay at Stamford Bridge. And there’s no doubt the squad would have benefited from another senior centre-back option.

That FSG continue to seek suitable outside investment – and how difficult that is proving for a number of other clubs – indicates their financial model has become if not obsolete, then at the very least somewhat dated.

The transfer window wasn’t perfect. But the owners will contend the financial reality suggests they have backed Klopp to an extent that gives Liverpool an opportunity to regain their place in the top four. The onus is now on the players to deliver.

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