A year ago, news of Kylian Mbappe potentially leaving Paris Saint-Germain would have sent the Liverpool fanbase into a frenzy.
The World Cup winner has regularly been linked with the Reds in recent years, stemming from Jurgen Klopp and FSG chief John W. Henry reportedly holding talks with the forward when he left Monaco for PSG, initially on loan, in 2017. Meanwhile, Mbappe himself revealed discussions were again held last year before he decided to sign an extension with the Parisians.
“We talked a little bit, but not too much. We talked a little bit,” he cautiously admitted to the Telegraph in May 2022, before referencing Liverpool’s first attempt to sign him. “I talked to Liverpool because it’s the favourite club of my mum, my mum loves Liverpool. I don’t know why, you will have to ask her!”
“It’s a good club and we met them five years ago. When I was in Monaco I met them. It’s a big club.”
READ MORE: Kylian Mbappe slams 'lies' and sets the record straight over PSG and Real Madrid
READ MORE: Join the Liverpool ECHO's LFC transfer news and top stories WhatsApp community
Mbappe had only just signed a contract extension with PSG when he spoke to the Telegraph, having agreed improved terms until the summer of 2025. His admission confirmed it wasn’t just a straight choice between staying at the Parc des Princes or joining Real Madrid last summer.
However, there was still a catch. His new contract only tied him to the French giants until 2024, with it up to the 24-year-old if he would sign up for a further season. He has, from a certain point of view, grown bigger than PSG and holds all the power.
Ultimately deciding against committing his future to PSG further, a letter was recently sent to the French club on his behalf confirming his intentions. Out of contract next year as a result, the Ligue 1 outfit will now reportedly look to cash in on their talisman this summer.
The latest twist in this lengthy transfer saga isn’t without its ugliness, of course. With Mbappe’s letter being leaked, PSG insist that player and club had been holding fresh contract extension talks, and that they weren’t aware of his decision not to trigger the further year in his contract.
In contrast, Mbappe has now had a statement released on his behalf denying that contract talks have taken place, while insisting PSG were informed of his decision at the time of signing the initial extension 12 months ago. He would also take to Twitter, labelling suggestions that he wants to leave as ‘lies’ and reiterating that he’s happy to remain in Paris next season.
Be it this summer or next year, it would appear that this time the Frenchman’s PSG career really is coming to an end. Of course, we have been at this stage of speculation regarding Mbappe before, with the entire 2021/22 campaign a back-and-forth regarding his future, with a switch to Real Madrid feeling inevitable only for an unexpected 11th hour decision to stay put in Paris.
But even if the Bernabeu has always felt like his most likely destination, Liverpool’s name has never been too far away when it came to discussing Mbappe’s next move. The interest is there, of course, and has been for six years, even if the Reds are well aware that the finances required to land such a transfer these days would probably be beyond them.
Yet, by holding talks, it’s not been for the want of trying. And with Klopp turning Liverpool from ‘doubters into believers’ after arriving at Anfield in October 2015, winning every major trophy along the way, Reds fans have dared to dream about him luring the best player in the world in waiting to Anfield.
It might have been fanciful, wishful thinking, with tongue-in-cheek suggestions of #Mbappe2020, #Mbappe2021, and so on, but there was always an optimistic hope beneath it all that if the Frenchman didn’t end up at Real Madrid, and in fact favoured a move to the Premier League, that Liverpool could be the club for him.
Alas, not this year. On Tuesday, as the PSG forward responded to his leaked letter with a statement clarifying his stance regarding his future, ‘Mbappe to Arsenal,’ Mbappe to United’, and ‘Mbappe to Chelsea’ were all trending on Twitter at varying points.
Where 12 months ago, Liverpool’s name would have dominated such speculation, now the Reds are conspicuous by their absence.
Of course, Kopites are well aware of their club’s current reality. Having had to withdraw from the race to sign Jude Bellingham, which Real Madrid look set to win, in April, if they had no chance of signing their supposedly more realistic dream target, then Mbappe was always going to be beyond their grasp.
But having been denied a dream ending to their unprecedented quadruple charge in 2021/22, over the past 12 months Liverpool fans have seen all hope slowly seep out of them entirely. Where once they threatened to win it all, they have since seen Man City lift the treble while a fifth-place finish consigned them to a season without Champions League football.
Kopites could be forgiven for feeling deflated. At their side’s best, they still missed out on two Premier League titles by a point to Man City and lost two Champions League finals to Real Madrid. The reality of Liverpool’s place in the football ladder, against these financial juggernauts that don’t have to dream about affording an Mbappe, has become abundantly clear.
If the Reds and their ageing squad hadn’t just suffered a season of transition, perhaps those fanciful dreams would still be present. Instead, it is Arsenal's supporters, having watched their side come from nowhere to lead a title-race all season long before stumbling to fall comfortably short, and the fans of free-spending Manchester United and Chelsea who may be fantasising about signing Mbappe instead.
Yet what difference would Champions League qualification really have made for Liverpool?
“Any statistical model will tell you that Kylian Mbappe is the best player in Europe at the moment,” the Reds’ outgoing director of research Dr Ian Graham (via The Guardian) recently said. “But unfortunately, financially, he’s out of Liverpool’s league. We’re looking for the best-performing players per pound.”
Such status might grant you a seat at the table to earn you a place in the conversation, but, as Liverpool have painfully found out in recent years, that still isn’t necessarily enough, with Klopp’s Ferrari analogy when asked about not signing Bellingham appropriate once again.
“You have to realise what you can do and then you have to work with it,” he said in April. “It’s about how much money you have, and you work with that.
“We are not children. You wouldn’t ask a five-year-old what they want at Christmas and if they say ‘a Ferrari’, you would not say: ‘Oh, that is a good idea.’
“No, you would say it’s too expensive and you cannot drive it. If this kid spends the rest of his life upset he hasn’t got a Ferrari, that would be sad life.”
Inevitably, this reality will prompt yet more screams of, ‘FSG OUT’ from the transfer-hungry social media hordes. Evidently, this vocal minority take up the role of the spoiled five-year-old at Christmas, hammering the floor in frustration on the shop floor as they throw their latest tantrum after not getting what they want, exactly how they want it.
If Mbappe spends one last season in Paris before departing on a free transfer, while Liverpool’s transitional season and subsequent absence from the Champions League both only last one year, perhaps they will find themselves back in the conversation again next summer.
But being in the conversation means nothing unless you have a realistic chance of being successful. The past year has opened Reds eyes to their current reality.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they can’t compete though. Far from it. A look across Klopp’s Anfield reign and the majority of major transfers have been players wishing to take that decisive final step to the top. This is how Liverpool’s success has been built, forging a great team that grew together rather than throwing together a group of Galactico individuals and merging into something they are not.
Alexis Mac Allister is the latest example of such a process as the Reds start a second cycle, and Klopp looks to build his side back up. If all goes to plan, they’ll be back competing for titles in no-time as a result.
This is ultimately where they’ll strive to be once more in 12 months’ time. But for what it means on the pitch more so than anything that happens in the transfer market.
Sure, being back in the Mbappe conversation would be nice as it would be confirmation that Liverpool remain one of the continent’s leading sides. And maybe they can work their way back up to being a position where they can actually compete for such signatures.
But the name on the front of the shirt will always mean far more than any superstar on the back.
READ NEXT
