Jurgen Klopp has had to field questions about Liverpool’s success rate in the transfer market. For obvious reasons, they relate to a track record of signings who have succeeded. And yet their net spend is proof they have tended to be fine sellers as well as buyers. Philippe Coutinho’s £142 million move to Barcelona was the most lucrative move, as well as the most high-profile example that few go on to better things after leaving Klopp’s Liverpool, but there is a different breed of departure.
Unlike Coutinho, they do not necessarily gravitate to the most glamorous of departures. Indeed, unlike him, they were rarely first choices at Anfield. Yet, time and again, they help fund the arrivals that come to be seen as such coups. Welcome to the world of the £15m sale.
