Gary Neville has claimed that Liverpool’s owners FSG have been ‘shocked’ by a number of reported Liverpool transfer targets who’ve either moved (or could move) to other clubs for nine-figure fees.
The Reds have been linked with Enzo Fernandez, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice over the past year, only to see the trio join Chelsea (£106.8m), Real Madrid (£88.5m, potentially rising to £115m) and Arsenal (£105m) respectively.
Moises Caicedo has also been named as a possible transfer target at Anfield (Football Insider), although Brighton reportedly want £100m for their Ecuadorian midfielder (The Athletic).
Speaking on The Overlap, Neville said that FSG have been caught out by other clubs being able to offer more for those players and duly get the deals done, adding that it could come back to haunt Liverpool further down the line.
The Sky Sports pundit said: “They haven’t got the money to be able to compete, and it’s shocked them in the market. The Bellingham deal was £100m, Rice another £100m, Fernandez £100m, Caicedo £100m.
“They’re at that point where they’ve hit the ceiling at a lower level than the other clubs, and it’s going to come and hit them like a ton of bricks.”
Liverpool’s relative parsimony in comparison to the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs has seen them miss out on a number of reported transfer targets in the past few years, something which has frustrated many Reds supporters.
That said, big-money purchases such as Darwin Nunez (initial £64m), Virgil van Dijk (£75m) and Dominik Szoboszlai (£60m) illustrate that the Merseysiders can push the boat out when they feel it’s worth doing so.
You can view Neville’s comments in full below, via The Overlap on YouTube:
The boat was only pushed out for Van Dijk when LFC had the money from the sale of Coutinho, that paid for VVD and Allison. FSG have now realised that their Data Driven system for new players isn’t working and haven’t a clue what to do about it. Now that they need to replace a few players, they’ve suddenly realised that it can’t be done without the purse strings being loosened which is what a lot of other clubs have already succeeded in doing.