As Liverpool look to finalise the capture of Aberdeen right-back Calvin Ramsay, the Reds have wasted no time getting transfer business done early this summer.
A deal for Fabio Calvalho was first to get done, picking up where Fulham and the Reds left off in January, to complete an initial deal understood to be worth £5milllion, rising to £7.7million for the versatile forward. He will officially become a Liverpool player on July 1. Then there was the big-money capture of Darwin Nunez - one of the most coveted young strikers in European football.
Keeping pace with Manchester City's recruitment of Erling Haaland, Nunez has joined Jurgen Klopp's team for an initial £65million, but that deal could rise as high as £85million, making him the most expensive signing in Liverpool's history. And now Scottish teenager Ramsay, whose quality performances for Aberdeen earned him the Scottish Football Writers' Young Player of the Year award last season, is very close to sealing a deal that will bring him south of the border and provide welcome competition or back-up for Trent Alexander-Arnold.
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So far so good? The Reds will certainly be satisfied with the business they have concluded up to this point, but supporters might be surprised to learn that the trio deals could actually signal the end of Liverpool's incoming transfer activity before the season gets underway in August.
If it proves to be the case, that decision may go against the view of Anfield legend and ex-captain Steve Gerrard - who recently suggested that his former club needed to bolster their engine room with the acquisition of an established goalscoring midfielder, helping to ease the pressure on Klopp's feared forward line, which is about to lose one of its key components in the shape of Sadio Mane.
"Jordan Henderson and James Milner are not getting any younger," said Gerrard in the aftermath of Liverpool's Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid. "They’re still top players at this level, of course, and they’ll want to go on and do more. But for Liverpool, if you think about the next five, six, seven years, they’re going to need a midfielder, an eight, who can get goals, who can get double figures.
"They are heavily reliant on the front three — or the front five if you include Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino. You always need one of those midfielders that’s going to get in the box and get you goals." While Gerrard may have been speaking about the long-term, it is arguably a squad gap many Liverpool fans would like to see addressed sooner rather than later.
One player who fits the bill and has been strongly linked with a move to Merseyside is England international Jude Bellingham. But with Borussia Dortmund allowing Haaland to join City already this pre-season, the German club are unlikely to let another of their star turns leave whilst under contract. The Reds may feel that they will have a much better chance of bringing the young talent back to England at the end of next season, when he will have run out another year of a contract that lasts until 2025.
Until then, it appears Klopp is prepared to stick with the midfield options that he has at his disposal, much like he did following the exit of Georginio Wijnaldum last summer. That worked out quite well for the Reds in the end, but it will once again test the depth of Liverpool's squad ahead of what is likely to be another long and gruelling season.
