There was a minute’s applause at Anfield on Sunday for one of Liverpool’s iconic No 7s, a Bundesliga winner who commanded a record fee. Not Florian Wirtz, though he was to score in a 3-2 friendly defeat to Monaco, but the late Kevin Keegan.
It was a reminder of the lineage that comes with a shirt. Keegan’s £500,000 move to Hamburg in 1977 in turn facilitated Liverpool’s then club-record purchase of Kenny Dalglish for £440,000. Almost half a century later, Wirtz’s £100m arrival from Bayer Leverkusen made him the most expensive player in their history, albeit for less than three months before Alexander Isak cost still more.
