Liverpool gearing up for massive changes

Welcome back to our Transfer Grades for summer 2024. For those just joining us, welcome aboard.

Find part 1 here [Arsenal through Brighton].
Find part 2 here [Crystal Palace through Ipswich].

Before we get started, we want you to know that we do not hate your team, specifically. We believe in broad equality, and therefore hate all teams equally.

Also, Manchester United got bumped to part 4, because as much as Kim might love Spurs, they can’t anchor a whole newsletter on their own.

Over on the podcast, Ted and Ravi get into more detail on the first batch of teams. They’ll be doing that for all the teams, so stay tuned for more episodes coming your way soon. If you prefer audio-only to YouTube, the RSS feed is here, or you can just search for “The Transfer Flow Podcast” on Apple or Spotify if that’s easier for you.

If you’re enjoying these transfer grades pieces, please forward to a friend. And if you are that friend, hi! You can subscribe here to get us in your inbox every weekday.

Leicester — Don’t do that. Stop. What are you doing. NO.

Total incomings — £85m

• Oliver Skipp — £20m + £5m add-ons

• Bilal El Khannouss — £20m

• Abdul Fatawu — £14m

• Caleb Okoli — £13m

• Jordan Ayew — £5m + £3m add-ons

• Michael Golding — £3m + £2m add-ons

• Bobby Decordova-Reid — Free

• Facundo Buonaotte — Loan

• Odsonne Edouard — Loan

Kim originally typed “eww, stinky” for this section and I wanted to lock that in here before giving any more robust analysis. This is not a good window. In the same way we praised Bournemouth for landing a bunch of above average players, we gotta ding Leicester for paying real fees for guys who are all below average or quite risky.

Outside of tidy passing, there are almost zero indications that Oliver Skipp is a legit Premier League midfielder. Paying £20m to be absolutely certain of that is Real Bad™.

Side note: Is this midfield Spurs academy fanfic? Where the mighty combination of Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp will dominate the Premier League for a season? Because that’s not going to happen, and no one would read it if you wrote it.

Also, Harry Winks turns 29 this year. When did that happen? How did that happen?

Bilal is another overpay for a highly uncertain talent — maybe he’s great in three years time, but he’s not stopping you from getting relegated this year. Decordova-Reid’s last good season was probably three years ago. Paying actual money for an Ayew at this stage in their career is no bueno.

The one deal I kinda like is Caleb Okoli. This is a low fee for a centreback that has had a lot of playing time in Italy in his early 20s, has the physical tools you want, and seems to defend fairly well in space.

Money was spent, but this was not where I would have spent it. That’s somewhat dangerous. —TK

I want to elaborate on Bilal El Khannouss a little bit. I think he’s really cool. Extremely entertaining player, good playmaking numbers, impressive assists. But he’s also a pure 10 who needs a system built around him and good players in deeper positions to get him the ball. And he has basically zero shooting output, so he also needs great players in front of him to get a lot of value out of him. This feels like Man City getting relegated with Georgi Kinkladze. —KM

Ted: D | Ravi: B- | Kim: D

Total outgoings — £30m

• Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall — £30m

• Marc Albrighton — Free

• Kelechi Iheanacho — Free

Cashing in on Bridgerton was good. Nothing else to see here. —TK

Ted: B | Ravi: B | Kim: B

I sure hope they can sell a lot of these dudes after they go down. —KM

Overall grade: C

Liverpool — It’s fine, we get it

Total incomings — £10m

• Federico Chiesa — £10m

So the context here is that Liverpool were in a transition summer out of the two-year period where Klopp was shadow running the club and alienating the nerds, and back into nerdcore management. Nerdcore off the pitch was what brought them success, while it was Jürgen who did a great job coaching and a less great job running the team.

I love Jürgen. I’m not being mean to him. These are just facts.

This is notable because while the media are teeing off on Richard Hughes for not getting Salah/ VVD/Trent extended this summer, it was Klopp’s regime that left them there with basically zero club leverage. Hughes (and presumably Edwards) have to clean up the mess they inherited anew.

Say it with me: Coaches are bad at running football teams, especially for the long term. Even the great ones.

The Chiesa pickup is a nice pounce, even if he doesn’t work out. But everyone will admit this window was probably a little too quiet and obviously did not address some glaring needs that can’t quite be patched over by the academy. —TK

Dude, where’s my DM? Liverpool deserves some criticism for not being able to find a suitable backup target after Martin Zubimendi opted to stay at Real Sociedad. This is a smaller mistake than blowing a bunch of money on a bad player, but a miss nonetheless.

Also, a note: Giorgi Mamardashvili is not included here since his transfer is agreed for next season, rather than a purchase and loan back. —KM

Ted: B- | Ravi: A- | Kim: C+

Total outgoings — £63.5m

• Fabio Carvalho — £22.5m + £5m add-ons

• Sepp van den Berg — £20m + £5m add-ons

• Bobby Clark — £10m

• Thiago — Free

• Adrian — Free

• Joel Matip — Free

• Academy sales — Approx. £1m

Sales were good. They usually are, but fans probably take that for granted at this stage. They shouldn’t. —TK

If you told me in June that Liverpool would sell Carvalho, van den Berg and Clark, I’d have guessed they got around £40m for them. They’ve done really well here. Which is necessary, because if all of the Big Three leave on frees, they’re going to need to spend a shitload of money next summer. —KM

Ted: B+ | Ravi: A | Kim: A

As Ted mentioned, this is a big transition year for Liverpool. It’s not just the three out of contract players who could move on soon. There have been grumblings about Alisson Becker accepting a fat Saudi paycheck, Andrew Robertson showed signs of slow decline beginning last season, and Darwin Núñez does not appear to be Arne Slot’s preferred profile of striker. Slot and Edwards will likely evaluate several other players as unsuited for their long-term vision as the season goes on.

I’m predicting that this is the calm before the storm, and next summer will be extremely dramatic. —KM

Overall grade: B+

Manchester City — Also the champions of net spend

Total incomings — £33m

• Savio — £21m + £10m add-ons

• Divin Muamba — £2m

• Ilkay Gundogan — Free

Savio should have cost 1.5x what he did, but he came from an associated part of City Football Group, so the fee is whatever they felt they could get away with, multiplied by whatever accounting cash needed to go the other way. He was a problem for defenders in La Liga last season and we expect that to carry on in England, especially given City have more weapons to divert defender attention.

The re-signing of Gundo is a subtle, very useful pickup. He had back problems at Dortmund ages ago that nearly derailed an epic talent, but City managed to rescue all of that, and his football brain is fantastic. —TK

They’re the best team in the league, and they maintained their position. Chillin. —KM

Ted: B | Ravi: A- | Kim: B+

Total outgoings — £164.5m

• Julian Alvarez — £64m + £17m add-ons

• Joao Cancelo — £21m

• Taylor Harwood-Bellis — £20m

• Liam Delap — £15m + £5m add-ons

• Sergio Gomez — £8.5m

• Other academy sales — £14m

Alvarez wanted out, yet City got a yooge fee for him. Massive. Yooge. He’s probably not as good as that fee, though he will tell you to your face that he is.

Cancelo has been on the Do Not Want list for quite a while and it was time to move beyond loan fees and recoup the cash. He’s still good, but also a 30-year-old fullback. These academy sales are very nice. To be fair, there are very good reasons Southampton love Harwood-Bellis and were willing to pay that fee, but the Liam Delap one is a tidy price. —TK

Is this the single best outgoings window a team’s ever had? I’m wondering if City feel relegation, or at least a massive points deduction that puts them out of the Champions League, is a possible result of their PSR case. And if that doesn’t happen, they’re set up to take a massive swing at a Vini Jr. or similar status superstar next summer. —KM

Ted: A | Ravi: A+ | Kim: A+

You see the king, stay the king. —KM

Overall grade: A-

Newcastle — You lose! Good day, sir!

Total incomings — £70m

• Lewis Hall — £28m + £7m add-ons

• Odysseas Vlachodimos — £20m

• William Osula — £15m

• Lloyd Kelly — Free

Car crash. Big pileup. Body parts everywhere. The only thing that saves this window is if Lewis Hall is the chosen one. And he totally might be England’s starting left back for a decade, but everything else about this window is a horror show. —TK

If they get away with the Vlachodimos-Anderson PSR swap without getting investigated, that’s pretty incredible. Osula is quite literally a lottery ticket, with similar odds of a win. They completely whiffed on their center back and winger targets, and got no one. Bad window. Stinky. —KM

Ted: D | Ravi: D | Kim: D-

Total outgoings — £65m

• Elliot Anderson — £35m

• Yankuba Minteh — £30m

• Ryan Fraser — Free

Yay, Ryan Fraser is off the books!

The rest is a train wreck. It’s not an “F” because Newcastle were terrified of PSR outcomes and did what they thought they had to, but the phrase “rue the day” comes to mind, and no one should ever have that stupid phrase in their heads. —TK

I actually don’t think that a points deduction is a worse outcome than what happened here. I’d rather take a -10 then sell Anderson and Minteh. Newcastle isn’t getting relegated, and Champions League is a mega long shot. They shouldn’t have spent so much in the past, but this is just compounding the mistake. AND they didn’t secure sales for anyone they actually did want off the books! Awful. —KM

Ted: D | Ravi: C | Kim: F

Literally what is even the point of selling your soul for money if this is the result? Eddie Howe is going to leave for the England job. —KM

Overall grade: D

Nottingham Forest — Playing FM in real life

Total incomings — £104.5m

• Elliot Anderson — £35m

• Morato — £13m

• Nikola Milenkovic — £12m

• Ramon Sosa — £9m + £2m add-ons

• Jota Silva — £6m + £5m add-ons

• Carlos Miguel — £3.5m

• Eric da Silva Moreira — £1.5m

• David Carmo (loaned out) — £10m + £3m add-ons

• Marko Stamenic (loaned out) — £4.5m

• Alex Moreno — Loan, unconfirmed buy option

• James Ward-Prowse — Loan, no buy option

I was watching Forest at the start of the season and one thing that struck me was that the composition of this squad looks nothing like what I ever would have anticipated a Forest team to look like after all those seasons in the Championship.

They have four Brazilians in the squad. And four Nigerians (two are dual national). And a Korean. And Chris Wood. And a fuckton of dual nationals. Given the total volume of flags represented, it might just be the most diverse squad of players in the entire Premier League, which is saying something.

Maybe that there is no where too far afield for them to try and find talent? Or that figuring out the foundation of their transfer business is extremely difficult due to the influence of Olympiakos, Nuno (Portuguese CBs? really?), and whatever they have going behind the scenes. I would not be surprised to find out the training ground is actually a combination player trading/import-export business dealing mostly with stolen South American antiques.

But I digress…

The PSR-swap adjusted fee for Elliot Anderson appears to be around £15m, which is perfectly acceptable for his age and current output/future potential. Nikola Milenkovic I genuinely like and that dude is awesome in the air. The Morat0 deal is also one that seems perfectly fine from the perspective of risk v reward, while providing both LB and CB cover.

I would not have made the Ramon Sosa deal, nor the Jota Silva deal, but finding attackers on a budget is really challenging, so they were forced to take risks at a price that won’t kill them even if they fail. I can respect the work, even if the outputs are underwhelming.

Besides, Nuno’s teams don’t usually attack much anyway. They just lock you down with a middle block, grind you to death, and if they manage to score a goal or two, yay, three points! Fine for Forest. Less fine for Spurs.

JWP is just there for free kick and corner deliveries in training across the whole club. 1st team? Yep. U17s? Yep. U13s? Them too. U11s? Well, no, now you are being ridiculous. We don’t let kids that young head the ball any more due to brain damage. —TK

I feel like head of recruitment Pedro Ferreira is just tinkering with sliders in their player search filters. OK, let’s set my center back parameters. 50 players? That’s too many, what happens when I tick the aerials up by 1 and the height up by an inch… ooh, Nikola Milenkovic and David Carmo! This is awesome, by the way. I love it. As long as you’ve got some safety checks in place. —KM

Ted: B+ | Ravi: B | Kim: A-

Total outgoings — £76.5m

• Moussa Niakhate — £27m

• Orel Mangala — £20m

• Odysseas Vlachodimos — £20m

• Joe Worrall — £5m

• Remo Freuler — £3.5m

• Academy sales — Approx. £1m

I don’t understand the Niakhate fee to Lyon. If it’s real, well done Forest, and a strange move from Lyon. Odysseas’ fee is definitely a lie, so zero credit there. Mangala’s fee is also… abnormal, and again to Lyon.

Hmm… I’m going to slowly back away from this section and not say any more. —TK

Ted: [redacted] | Ravi: B+ | Kim: A

I’m choosing to take everything from Forest’s window at face value. Good job, boys! Nothing sus happening here at all! By the way, the Lyon section of next week’s grades for teams on the continent is going to be amazing. —KM

Overall grade: A-

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