When the dust settles in the years to come and Jurgen Klopp, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah have all left Anfield, there will be plenty of moments for this generation of players and fans to reminisce on.
From the effortless swing of Divock Origi's left boot in the Wanda Metropolitano to claim European football's ultimate prize, to Kostas Tsimikas' ice-cold penalty at Wembley to win the FA Cup in one of the greatest campaigns the club has ever seen. There will be an abundance of tales for the supporters of the future to recite.
Since their heartache in Kyiv following the 2018 Champions League final, Liverpool have become used to success. Despite missing out on a remarkable quadruple in the final plays of the 2021/22 campaign, Klopp has guided the Reds to six trophies during his time at the club and Jordan Henderson has even become the first captain to lift six different honours, having got his hands on the elusive Club World Cup in the winter of 2019.
But even with the clear collective exertion of all those within Klopp's ranks over a glittering four-year period, stalwarts Van Dijk and Alisson Becker are the two individuals that are commonly hailed as the acquisitions that transformed Liverpool from the nearly men to the bosses of European football.
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Throughout its 130-year history, Liverpool has been the home to some of the game's finest forwards, from Billy Liddell's heroics in the second division under Bill Shankly to Kenny Dalglish's European supremacy, right the way through to Luis Suarez and Salah's record-breaking Premier League standards, Anfield has seen it all.
Though in the years since the Reds' 18th league win in 1990, many a title challenge has crumbled on the red half of Merseyside due to the lack of cohesion in the defence. The problematic back four of Brendan Rodgers' class of 2014 is frequently cited as the reason Suarez and co's exceptional run in the final third of the season amounted to nothing.
And even as Klopp began to assemble his squad during his early days at Anfield with the additions of Sadio Mane, Salah and Andy Robertson, the German had identified a glaring imperfection to his side. It was October 2017 and only half an hour had been played at Wembley, yet Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren was trudging towards the touchline after his nightmare 30-minute showing, littered with errors, was enough for his manager to make a heartless, yet justified, call.
Goals from Son Heung-min, Dele Alli and a brace from Harry Kane humbled the Reds to their lowest moment of Klopp's early years as they were brushed aside 4-1 by Tottenham. Their defensive shortcomings were glaringly obvious as the 16 goals they had shipped in the opening nine games of the Premier League 2017/18 campaign was the most since the 1964/65 season.
Though Liverpool would have the executives over in Barcelona to thank for their overnight transformation of the defensive division, as they finally secured the signature of the highly-coveted Southampton defender Van Dijk for a fee of £75m in January 2018. Nevertheless, his addition would come at the cost of the brilliance of Philippe Coutinho who, six months after his initial attempts to broker a deal to Spain, would finally secure his dream move to La Liga.
However, Barca's purchase of Klopp's ultimate talisman, after a spectacular final half-season at Anfield, would not come cheap as former sporting director Michael Edwards famously negotiated an astronomical transfer package worth up to £142m - which ranks as the third most expensive transaction the game has ever seen.
Indeed, the nonchalant attitude of those in Spain to authorise a vast sum on Coutinho came as a result of the world-record fee (£190m) they had received for Neymar in the previous summer. Which has led to 2017 being earmarked as the transfer window which reshaped the game's financial ecosystem.
The Brazilian's switch from La Liga to Ligue 1 undoubtedly caused a domino effect of inflation across European football and amplified the amount of power selling clubs possessed. And even though Liverpool seemed to be stung themselves by bowing to Southampton's world record asking price of Van Dijk, the heights the Dutchman immediately displayed after his move to Anfield eliminated any lingering concerns about the pricey outlay.
Nevertheless, Anfield officials would be forced to spend big once again just six months later as they finalised the signing of Alisson Becker from Roma after Loris Karius' unfortunate series of events in the 2018 Champions League final. But, much like Van Dijk, the Brazilian's instant influence upon transferring to Merseyside escalated the Reds to new heights under Klopp as they prevailed as Europe's team to beat during his maiden campaign.
But five years on from the chaotic summer of 2017, the Reds have proved to the rest of Europe they were the sole winners of the unusual spike in stock. Since then a whole host of clubs have sanctioned sizeable deals for top-tier talent - with Harry Maguire (£80M), Joao Felix (113m) and Antoine Griezmann (£107m) amongst those who saw their value rise exponentially - but their investments have failed to mirror the influence both Van Dijk and Alisson have enjoyed since their moves to Merseyside.
With that being said, it hasn't just been from a recruitment stance that Liverpool have been able to profit from the volatile condition of Europe's elite-level market, with Edwards managing to recoup a fee in the region of £118m since 2018 for those deemed surplus to requirements at Anfield.
Yet that figure could increase once more in the coming days as defender Neco Williams edges closer to a move to Nottingham Forest. On Thursday afternoon the ECHO reported that both clubs had agreed on a deal worth £17m for the right-back, who has only managed 13 Premier League appearances during his time in the Reds' first team. It's a deal that highlights just how brainy the transfer operations have been in recent seasons, with a Williams' fee equating to roughly £1.3m for every top-flight outing he has made for the club he joined at the age of nine.
Also contributing to that impressive fee includes a deal which saw academy prospect Rhian Brewster move to Sheffield United for £23.5m in 2020, and the fee just shy of £20m that saw Dominic Solanke transfer to Bournemouth in 2019. The funds have been subsequently reinvested at Anfield to hand Klopp the resources to bolster his chances of achieving further success on Merseyside.
And with reports emerging this summer that PSG are open to offloading their superstar Brazilian as the newly-appointed Christophe Galtier looks to cement his authority during the infancy of his tenure. In hindsight, there were no winners when Neymar decided to go to PSG. Except for Liverpool.
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