After agreeing a £45m deal with Leeds United for Kalvin Phillips, Man City are set to take their spending for the summer to £96.2m after already signing Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund. Consider their interest in Brighton & Hove Albion defender Marc Cucurella and Pep Guardiola will be comfortably spending well over £100m once again as his side look to do the transfer business which will keep them ahead of Liverpool this season.
Having also signed Julian Alvarez from River Plate in a £14m deal back in January ahead of moving to the Etihad this summer, such business is understandably rather intimidating to Reds fans. Especially when you consider that City have won the title in four of the last five seasons, pipping Jurgen Klopp ’s men by a solitary point on two occasions.
It remains to be seen if Guardiola will strengthen further, though City have reportedly agreed a deal with free agent Stefan Ortega in case back-up goalkeeper Zack Steffen leaves the club. In contrast, Liverpool’ s incoming transfer business is by all accounts finished, with word from Anfield insisting the Reds will not add to their squad any further after parting with an initial £73.1m, which could rise to £99.2m, to bring in Darwin Nunez , Fabio Carvalho and Calvin Ramsay.
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Yet despite City’s heftier spending, both on transfer fees and wages, their summer movement has taken a rather similar approach to Liverpool, truth be told. With both sides playing as close to perfection as English football as ever seen, business these days is more small modifications and upgrades as the two clubs replace outgoings.
Having seen Fernandinho depart Man City at the end of his contract, Phillips will be his direct replacement. Meanwhile, Haaland and Alvarez could essentially replace Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling in the Man City squad ahead of potential exits, with Cucurella touted as a replacement for Oleksandr Zinchenko.
At Anfield, a mixture of Nunez and January signing Luis Diaz, brought in six months earlier than originally planned, has replaced the wantaway Sadio Mane following his £35m move to Bayern Munich. Meanwhile, Divock Origi and Takumi Minamino look set to be the only other departees from Klopp’s squad during the second half of last season as the Reds almost won an unprecedented quadruple, with Carvalho taking up that back-up forward role left by the duo, and Ramsay filling the previous open vacancy as Trent Alexander-Arnold’s understudy.
The likes of Neco Williams and Nat Phillips could still exit Anfield but, with the first team set to report back to the AXA Training Centre for pre-season training on July 4, Klopp’s squad is already in place for the 2022/23 season, giving them a small head start on their rivals in the process. Yet there remains a concern that they are leaving themselves weak in the engine-room.
City’s imminent signing of Phillips, who has been linked with a move to Anfield himself in the past, will only draw more focus to such concerns. As will Tottenham’s signing of Yves Bissouma and Arsenal’s signing of Fabio Vieria, both players Liverpool have been credited with interest in in the past, along with Manchester United’s pursuit of Frenkie de Jong and Christian Eriksen. And that’s without considering Chelsea links to Declan Rice after Thomas Tuchel was reportedly granted a £200m warchest to play with following Todd Boehly’s takeover of the club.
Yet Klopp’s midfield will remain untouched for another year, with the eight senior options that nearly delivered the quadruple still intact at Anfield. Logically such a stance makes sense given Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones are a year older and more experienced, Jordan Henderson and Thiago Alcantara are by no means ready to be put out for pasture just yet and neither is James Milner, who remains under contract for another year along with Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
After all, Liverpool are playing a long-term game with their footballing operations team, first led by sporting director Michael Edwards and now Julian Ward, following a clear vision and strategy to deliver success to Anfield. Aware they can’t overhaul half of Klopp’s squad in the same summer, attack was the priority for 2022 with plans to sign a new midfielder on hold until summer 2023 as the soft launch of the Reds’ next generation continues.
Yet Liverpool would have signed a new midfielder this summer if they felt the right player was available, having held talks with Monaco’s Aurelien Tchouameni and tried to persuade him to join the Reds, only to be informed he wanted to move to Real Madrid. Unable to rival the significant wages on offer at the Bernabeu which could have turned his head, club bosses stuck to their 2023 stance.
The National reported earlier this week that Liverpool felt deals for the likes of Leicester City’s Youri Tielemans, Bissouma and Phillips would all have proven relatively easy to complete. Yet the Reds were willing to pass on each of the trio and, in the case of the latter, avoided a potential bidding war in the process.
With Phillips now on the move to Man City, where he will inevitably earn considering higher wages than what would have been on offer at Anfield, just a week after Tottenham Hotspur signed Bissouma from Brighton & Hove Albion in a cut-price £25m deal, supporters will understandably have been left bemused as to why Liverpool didn’t rival either side for the respective midfielders. But the lack of movement from the Reds for either player makes one thing clear. They decided Bissouma and Phillips were not for them.
Then consider Liverpool’s long-standing interest in Jude Bellingham, who won’t be allowed to exit Borussia Dortmund until 2023 following the departure of Haaland this summer, and it’s easy to put two and two together and speculate why the Reds are willing to wait. In truth, having seen their domestic rivals strengthen their own midfields now, such business could even be aiding their efforts for 12 months’ time if the England international is the man they want.
There is a reason why they are willing to wait. Klopp’s Liverpool don’t do stop-gaps with the Reds only moving for game-changing signings that can improve their starting XI and their squad. Such a stance has repeatedly been vindicated in the past when they decided to be patient, despite outside pressure to strengthen, before moving for the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson, Alisson and Mohamed Salah.
As a result, Liverpool will have no regrets about missing out on Phillips, with their eye instead looking elsewhere. And while it remains to be seen if Bellingham is indeed the player they are waiting on to improve their midfield, having missed out on Tchouameni, the Reds have no reason to steer away from the vision and strategy that continues to serve them so well.
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