The wounds of a Champions League final defeat in Kyiv were still raw for Liverpool, physically and emotionally, when they last spent big on a coveted, specialist defensive midfielder. The contrast between the arrival of Fabinho in 2018 and events since his departure is a clear illustration of a transfer operation swapping clarity for confusion.
News of Fabinho’s move from Monaco emerged within 24 hours of the 3-1 loss to Real Madrid. Mohamed Salah was still receiving treatment on a shoulder injury, and Jürgen Klopp had not even considered the possibility of Loris Karius suffering concussion, when the €45m transfer was finalised three days after a season of staggering progress had come to a shattering end. There were no rumours of a Liverpool move for the Brazilian and no drawn-out negotiations for a player who had attracted widespread interest. The sporting director Michael Edwards got the job done while leaving Klopp to focus on preparations for European football’s biggest night. Defeat in Kyiv would not derail Liverpool, as Fabinho’s arrival showed.
Now Fabinho is gone, Edwards too, and Liverpool are desperately searching for a replacement with the Premier League season under way and their two leading candidates for the role, Moisés Caicedo and Roméo Lavia, resisting their advances in favour of joining Chelsea on extensive contracts. A midfield rebuild that had started so impressively this summer, and the ambitions of a team that shone in spells at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, are in jeopardy as a consequence.
The past five days have been galling for Klopp, who was in ebullient form on Friday after Liverpool had a British record fee of £111m accepted by Brighton for Caicedo on Thursday night. Liverpool had known all summer of the Ecuador international’s preference for Stamford Bridge but Chelsea’s failure to get the deal done, and indications from Caicedo’s camp that he would be open to a move to Merseyside, presented a window of opportunity. It had closed without reward by Sunday night. Mauricio Pochettino almost had his man and Klopp was left taking cheap shots at Chelsea for always backing their managers in the transfer market. Jealously is an ugly trait.
If Caicedo represented the ideal pivot for a midfield enhanced by the summer arrivals of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai then Lavia appeared the more attainable one. At 19, and with only one season of Premier League experience in a relegated Southampton side, Liverpool initially viewed Lavia as a long-term project who could develop under Fabinho’s guidance. The Brazilian’s exit may have increased Lavia’s immediate importance but not Liverpool’s valuation. Three bids, the third amounting to £45m, were rejected by Southampton before Liverpool threw their resources at Caicedo. They are in danger of losing out to Chelsea again for Lavia despite going back to Southampton with a higher offer this week.
#FSGOUT is trending again, as it does when Liverpool simply draw a game in truth, but criticism of the owners’ ambition and largesse does not stack up in the aftermath of a £111m offer for a 21-year-old with no Champions League experience. The cost of defensive midfielders has exploded and Fenway Sports Group has shown a willingness to keep up. But criticism of how they have allowed Liverpool’s once-slick transfer operation under Edwards to become beset by instability and muddled-thinking is entirely legitimate.
Liverpool can move smartly and effectively in the transfer market, as meeting the £35m release clause for Mac Allister, the £60m release clause for Szoboszlai and recent deals for Coady Gakpo and Luis Díaz have shown. But they have been found wanting strategically, first on the midfield improvements that were required last summer and now on Fabinho’s successor, and their reputation for executing deals has taken a battering in the past few days alone.
Edwards’ replacement as sporting director, Julian Ward, announced he was leaving after only six months at the helm, although he stayed until the end of last season to get Mac Allister over the line. Ward’s successor, Jörg Schmadtke, has signed only a short-term contract to help Klopp with what always promised to be a hectic window. FSG will have to appoint a fourth sporting director in two years when Schmadtke goes. Several other backroom figures have also exited in the past two seasons.
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This is a first-world, elite-level, rich person’s problem that Liverpool are wrestling with of course. They have just missed out on a British record transfer, not destroyed all hope of reclaiming a place in the Champions League or challenging for the title. Klopp needs one player to allow Mac Allister and Szoboszlai to flourish either side of them and for Liverpool to acquire the solidity needed to become the sum of many exciting parts.
The Liverpool manager will not be spending the remainder of the transfer window in a darkened room with his head in his hands, lamenting the eight-year contracts that Todd Boehly is throwing around at Chelsea. But Klopp, FSG and “Liverpool reloaded” find themselves at a crossroads in their rebuild and must rediscover the vision and decisiveness of 2018 to take the right path. Perhaps a reunion with Edwards is required to show them the way?
