I know it's only March, but in terms of reinforcements in the summer, the rumours that the Liverpool journalists are hearing/putting out is that we are expected to invest heavily this summer. (I feel like I hear this every other window, so I'll believe it when I see it.)
My gut now tells me that
VvD is the only one that re-signs with Liverpool. I am 50-50 on
Salah, but I think he is now closer to leaving than staying. And
TAA has had his eye on the exit door since at least December.
I would expect
Kelleher to stop playing nice and force an exit, and rightfully so. We probably fetch 20-25M GBP for him.
I personally love
Joe Gomez. I think he is a great versatile defender when fit. But that is his problem, he is never fit. Knowing our luck, the second we sell him, he will string 20+ months without an injury and be an England regular. I would demand 40-45M GBP for his services. (Newcastle were offering 45M GBP last summer).
If we could get 15M GBP for
Endo, I'd sell him too and let
Bajcetic (who has been playing quite well in Spain) fill that role.
I continue to have mixed feelings on
Darwin. But it really does feel like his days on Merseyside are numbered. He is still young, turning 26 in the summer, so I would expect a fee of somewhere in the 50-55M GBP range for him to see the exit. (Saudi apparently came in in January and offered 60M+ GBP for him).
I would think we bring a LB so one of
Robbo or
Tsimikas would need to make way for him. I think 20-25M GBP for either of them would be good. Keep the other as cover.
I would then also expect us to sell a few of our players that have been out on loan like
Rhys Williams,
Nat Phillips (finally) as well as the odd youngster or two like
James McConnell or
Trent Kone-Doherty that should fetch another 10-15M GBP total.
My favoured incomings would be Bournemouth's 21 year old LB
Kerkez (30M), 19 year old CB
Dean Huijsen (40M), Ajax's 18 year old CB/FB
Jorrel Hato (30M), Brighton's 21 year old CM
Carlos Baleba (35M), and
Alexander Isak (110M).
In an ideal world, our departures would fetch a total of ~160-165M GBP. The above incomings would cost ~245M. So an investment of 80-85M GBP would be required from FSG to revamp this squad and provide reinforcements to the back line where we always seem to have injuries and in the midfield where we need players that Slot actually trusts to rotate in and give breaks to our midfield three. And if Salah does indeed go, we'd need to replace his goal contribution output (an admittedly impossible task), but the only player I would want in world football at the moment would be Isak at Newcastle (and if you believe the internet, he would try to force his way out of Tyneside if they don't get CL football next season. So root for whoever plays Newcastle the rest of the way).
What I would want our 2025-2026 roster to look like (without Salah
):
GKs: Alisson Becker, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Vitezslav Jaros
RBs: Conor Bradley, Calvin Ramsey
CBs: VvD, Ibou Konate, Dean Huijsen, Jorrel Hato, Jarell Quansah
LBs: Andy Robertson or Kostas Tsimikas, Milos Kerkez
CMs: Carlos Baleba, Dominik Szoboszlai. Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch, Curtis Jones, Stefan Bajcetic, Tyler Morton
LW: Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo
CF: Alexander Isak, Diogo Jota
RW: Federico Chiesa, Harvey Elliott, Ben Doak
As always, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
