The topic of net spend can be a thorny issue for some Liverpool fans.
During the high watermark seasons of recent years under Jurgen Klopp, where the Reds won the Premier League and the Champions League, Liverpool’s ability to be successful while spending more frugally than some of their rivals was lauded in some quarters, although derided in others.
But with the struggles of last season and a fifth placed finish meaning that the Reds will be in the Europa League next season and not the lucrative Champions League for the first time since the 2016/17 season, focus very much shifted on the lack of squad investment in comparison to those around them and how it had been a major contributing factor to what happened last season.
Over the last five years of Premier League football the net spend of owners Fenway Sports Group at Liverpool has stood at 10th on the list, according to data provided by Sportslens.com. The negative net spend of the Reds has been £158.37m, with the club having continued to follow their tried and trusted path of selling assets to help offset some of the cost of transfer outlay.
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The growing issue has been the lack of saleable assets that they have in terms of players who could command a significant fee but also have no real first team future with the club anymore. This summer saw the departure of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita, James Milner and Roberto Firmino on free transfers. While Firmino left a club legend and more than paying back his £28m fee in 2015, and Milner having signed that same year on a free, in the case of Keita and Oxlade-Chamberlain the club never got the value from the combined £88m that was spent, not even close.
Injuries did not help the cause of either of those additions during their time at Liverpool, but the fact that they have left without a penny coming back the other way represents a failure in terms of recruitment, albeit a rare one.
Selling two players of that calibre with time left on their contracts would have created some cash for a rebuild this summer, but given the lack of players available to sell for a big price that Klopp would be comfortable in allowing to leave, this summer will mark new territory for FSG, who will have their highest negative net spend since they acquired the club in 2010.
Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai’s arrivals already mean that £95m has been committed in transfer spend, and with Romeo Lavia a target and potentially another centre back it is conceivable that more than £170m could be spent, with very little coming back the other way. In the past there has been heavier spend in terms of outgoings, with the likes of Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk arriving for big sums. But those deals were offset considerably by outgoings, most notably the £142m sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in 2018.
To use the example of Lavia and another rumoured target, Wolfsburg defender Micky van de Ven, should those two players arrive for the transfer fees that have been touted, £50m and £26m respectively, then that would take total net spend for Liverpool to £171m in this window.
In the previous four seasons the negative net spend of the Reds stood at £186.7m. Should Liverpool press ahead and seek to complete the summer rebuild that was hoped for by fans then it would mean that they negative net spend this summer alone would be 95 per cent of what the previous four seasons had been.
For Reds fans the additions of Mac Allister and Szoboszlai have been warmly welcomed, but the summer plan still remains incomplete. How far FSG will be willing to go and break from their traditional spending model remains to be seen, although this is a summer where investment has to be made to ensure the issues of last season don’t roll over and become something bigger, and far more costly.
