2025, The Summer When Liverpool Struck While The Iron Was Red-Hot

Gyökeres, Guéhi, Konaté, Doak, Kerkez, Quansah, Núñez, Isak, Bajčetić, Osimhen, Homegrown Quotas, Heskey

In the past few weeks I’ve lost count of what I’ve written about in terms of potential signings, confirmed signings, potential sales and confirmed sales, and all the permutations thereof.

I’ve written various comments under the articles, and drafted various articles that I’ve left for later, perhaps because Liverpool are no longer going to sign or sell the player in question, or perhaps because they never were going to in the first place.

Given the heatwave, and the chaos of my summer (and a global summer), I’m not even sure I’m keeping up. Liverpool have just signed Emile Heskey, I hear? He looks so good for Leicester.

But it’s time for another roundup, to analyse some ins and outs, rumours, and things I see as possibly happening.

Hottest Iron

Crucially, this feels like a chance for Liverpool to do several things at once, perhaps due to the uniqueness of a set of factors: being English champions, having spent virtually nothing in 2024; with Arne Slot inheriting a half-transitioned team from Jürgen Klopp, but where the 2023 midfield rebuild (around £160m for four players), as is so often the case with a bigger spend on numerous players, did pretty well in Year One and went stellar in Year Two.

Liverpool also have the unique balancing act – but also its ballast – with key players being aged 32, 33 and 34, and thus for the two outfield players, building around them and providing the energy and pace and ultra-cunning that the squad wasn’t heavy with even when winning the title.

Liverpool, a tall team who led the aerials-won for most of last season, may be sacrificing some height, but introducing far more pace and skill.

Next, the overproduction of homegrown players – given chances during Klopp’s semi-frequent injuries crises – is almost a pathway block, as the team is better than ever, and aiming to get even better than better than ever. Indeed, it could then get better than better than better than ever.

My sense is that the full-backs will be rotated for optimum energy and attacking verve and pace and relentlessness for 90 minutes, so Conor Bradley will get plenty of game time, as will new buy Jeremie Frimpong (who at least counts as homegrown, if club-trained). I can see the two taking it in turns to start games and finish games, so each is getting plenty of minutes.

So Bradley, while not given the berth, has a pathway, as he turns 22. He may also be picked for more physical battles.

But the other 22-brigade, Jarell Quansah, Harvey Elliott and Tyler Morton – like the older Caoimhín Kelleher – are players good enough for Liverpool, but not good enough to be in the first XI, even if Slot doesn’t need a set best XI.

They’re great young squad players, but having racked up 147, 58, 14 and 67 appearances respectively (at a very handy average of 72 apiece), they can all be sold; not as some cold, calculating PSR stunt, but because they haven’t quite gone to the level of Curtis Jones (179 appearances), and even Jones isn’t in the best XI; just closer. (Bradley, about to turn 22, is already on 57.)

These fringe 22-year-olds probably want game-time, so I assume they will be sold, and that means big PSR benefits. (All will have buybacks as standard.) Remember, Florian Wirtz is 22, and Milos Kerkez 21.

This is future-proofing the side with players 100% ready at that age, which allows for a few older players to continue to do their elite things.

The Reds don’t use homegrown players as cynically as other clubs, but Liverpool spend, via transfers and the less-noted wages, neither less nor more than it earns via the various forms of income, including sales (and yes, so when a Philippe Coutinho goes for £142m, £142m gets spent on players.)

Liverpool could raise as much as £300m from sales this summer, but easily over £200m, in a year when record amounts will have been made via performances (winning the league, and 10 Champions League games, eight won).

As I always say, like with all culture wars, there's a stupid argument on one extreme and a stupid argument on the other. FSG are neither benefactors, nor scrooges. They are responsible custodians who have improved Liverpool immeasurably without any financial risks; they do not dip into their own pockets, nor line their pockets. In a way, they are boringly sensible, and boringly sensible is terrible for culture warriors.

As such, Liverpool are neither the biggest spenders, nor misers. Whatever comes in, goes into the team. It’s fairly simple. There is no financial doping involved.

Getting back to the squad, someone like the brilliant (but growing-pain plagued) Stefan Bajčetić counts as homegrown and is only 20, and thus has a bit more time on his side as he grows some more – into an adult body – before the age of 22/23, when homegrown players who are really good but not quite good enough, or not suited to the system, have to decide to be eternal squad players, or to go away and get games, and maybe get better.

(Indeed, Kelleher did far longer as a backup than most players, and he leaves a few months before turning 27. What a great decade he had with the Reds.)

Ditto Ben Doak as one with time on his side, like Jayden Danns (also plagued by the increasing growth spurts and young bodies trying to keep up with a man’s game that’s more like an iron-man’s game these days); but some young players would rather start every week at a lesser club, too. No one is going to say Doak is going to replace Mo Salah this season.

Similarly, as I put it the other day, almost everyone has gone down one place in ‘Liverpool’s best player rankings’, with Florian Wirtz not bought to be a squad player. His going into the XI further limits players who play in that area of the pitch.

So – so much is going on.

You also have players that Liverpool like but others have sought, like Luis Díaz, but where they’ve gone for others instead; and Díaz is a superb player, but 28 and entering the final two years.

Andy Robertson is not the player he was, and the arrival of Kerkez gives the Reds the most obvious upgrade available to the XI, while Robertson is on big wages for a reserve, and will want regular football at his age. He’s the one older guy who makes way, as a genuine contender for the club’s best left-back of all-time, but one also kneecapped by Father Time.

And Ibou Konaté, so popular, but either not liking the terms to extend as he enters the last year of his contract, or already knowing where he’ll move in 2026.

You have an £85m striker who is surplus to requirements, and then, what kind of striker Liverpool want to replace him with, and if Wirtz players as a false 9 at times, or Liverpool play two no.10s and no striker (as Slot has done at times), how much do you spend on the new no.9? And can you offer enough game-time? Certainly Alexander Isak seems out of the running given his age and fee (and wages), but he is probably the safest option as a player; it’s just not that safe to pay £150m.

And you have other players who look set to leave, such as Federico Chiesa, who didn’t offer much beyond smiles in 2024/25. While Robertson, Elliott, Quansah and Darwin Núñez made contributions, the team didn’t really rely on them. Morton didn’t really feature.

So there will be a lot of churn, but mostly players leaving, and mostly non-essential players leaving, which is not worrying churn given the experience of 18-20 players still at the club.

But how many further additions are made, and how many go into the XI or into the pool for best subs, will determine how much churn affects the team. Some of the new signings can be phased in.

My mantra for 2025/26 is going to be that there may be an initial period of disruptive transition and integration, as well as the extra pressures of defending the title (perhaps leading to a short term regression), so it may be bumpy at times; but this is a new team being build for five seasons, not one (so, long-term progression).

That doesn’t mean it can’t all click immediately, just the risk that it doesn’t.

I can’t recall being as excited about a new season in eons, given the retention of all but one key player, and the addition of so many thrilling prospects.

But I also think the league will remain strong as a whole down to around 14th place, but obviously expect more from big clubs those who fell way short in 2024/25.

So, what next?

I’ll look more at the individual cases below, and how things may pan out.