No Bellingham, No Problems. Klopp Is Rebuilding Liverpool This Summer, and It Should Be Great Fun

Why panic? Why worry? There are plenty of top targets for Klopp to sign

To me, the only person who must be at Liverpool next season is Jürgen Klopp.

"With smart recruitment we will improve - definitely. That is the plan."

I'm excited to hear him thinking ahead, having feared he might be losing heart.

The Jude Bellingham transfer was always going to be tricky, but did seem possible. However, if is has become too tricky (and not just money), it makes sense to move on. To get back on track, Klopp is far more vital than any single player.

Last summer Liverpool went in hard for Aurélien Tchouaméni and Bellingham.

The problem was a lack of finalising difficult deals for these players (Tchouaméni was lost to Real Madrid despite bidding close to £100m), but especially the Bellingham pursuit dragging on, only to end up in Dortmund wanting to keep him as Erling Haaland left instead, due to a release clause (and £35m to his dad and agent).

I also heard that last summer a deal to sign Moises Caicedo was agreed with Brighton, but his various agents were almost holding the Reds hostage, with increasing ransom demands.

(Thankfully FIFA will return to cracking down on agents, after making it a Wild West by deregulating the industry. This autumn sees a change in the rules and lots of agents will be trying to push through deals before they lose their licences.)

Time got tight in 2022, and there seemed to be disagreement on who the next-best options were, and then suddenly it was a case of signing Arthur Melo on deadline day.

So to pursue a complicated chase for Bellingham (if Dortmund wanted to make it an auction that lasted all summer), and now with the loss of finances and cachet of Champions League football next season (which has only become more-or-less a fact in the last 10 days), could be like repeating the mistakes of last summer.

The failure to land targets – players who would have improved the Reds – also meant keeping Naby Keïta and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, albeit Keïta had just had a good season.

This year, Bellingham was keen on Liverpool in return, given all the connections he has at the club, but if the Reds spent £200m this summer, he would take up two-thirds of it.

And there was still no guarantee that, despite his fondness for the club, for Klopp and for his best mates already playing for Liverpool, he'd choose the Reds, or that Dortmund would sell, or that Dortmund would sell at a price Liverpool could afford.

Decoy?

Of course, it may be a bargaining play, to pretend to pull out of the deal, but I actually think it's a genuine change of plan, and a realistic and sensible decision.

That said, it’s never easy to second-guess what the Reds do in the market; other than it usually turns out to be a smart move. Clouding the issue is often part of the plan.

However, I’m going to assume that the reports last night are true, and the Reds have pulled out of the deal; while still assuming the outside chance of a reversal (until either the Reds sign other players instead, or Bellingham goes elsewhere.)

Liverpool's best transfers are often all pre-agreed before the season ends and/or either window opens, and most have been around, or below, the £40m mark. Many come out of the blue.

It's vital to have things sorted early, to integrate the players in preseason, and to know the work is done.

Liverpool's last-gasp or Hail Mary recruits over the last dozen years include Andy Carroll, Ozan Kabak, Ben Davies, Mario Balotelli, Steven Caulker and Arthur Melo. Ouch.

Luis Díaz was signed a couple of days before the deadline in January 2022, but actually, he was brought in six months early, not too late. Philippe Coutinho was a rare late success, a decade ago. (Cody Gakpo is also a summer 2023 transfer brought forward.)

Bellingham at his best would clearly improve the XI; but if injured, out of form or burdened by the price tag, those would be the downside risks; the eggs in one basket situation.

Mistakes

The only mistakes this summer would be to not spend what’s available wisely (or at all), or to spend too much money, which the club doesn’t have, and get into debt, or FFP trouble. Only the club knows what it can spend, and I back the sustainable model, which is what football should be about (not vulgar regimes spending gazillions; I want to see Liverpool run properly, not as some kind of cash-spunking monstrosity).

Signing Bellingham clearly made sense, if doable; now the balance has apparently shifted.

But then I’ve hedged on this all along, as regular readers will know; saying not to obsess over it.

Not least as, if he didn’t sign, that would always be £130m (plus the hefty agents' cuts in addition) to spend on other players. If he did sign, Liverpool would have a truly superb player. Either will be win-win in terms of the initial aim of getting back into the top four.

If Liverpool now feel they need to spread the money further, on additional players, or if the drop in income next season affects the budget too much, then you have to accept that Klopp, Julian Ward, Mike Gordon, the elite data guys and the excellent senior scouts, will seek several excellent players instead of one who is fractionally better.

Indeed, that's been the Liverpool way these past eight years, with perhaps the exception of Virgil van Dijk (fee), Alisson (fee) and Thiago Alcântara (reputation): spread the money more evenly, and do so on less-established names.

I worry about churn, and maybe 10 players will depart this summer. There will be upheaval, but not a mass influx.

Many of those leaving weren't in the squad anyway of late, and half of those can be replaced by the excellent youngsters and the returning injured stars; I'd been expecting 3-5 signings with Bellingham, but it may now be 5-6 signings, albeit not all for the XI.

(As an aside, Tyler Morton started to fade a bit in his first gruelling 'full' season in professional football at Blackburn, but overall has been excellent given his previous lack of experience, and at 20, with 50 games now under his belt, would be a much better squad player than an injured Keïta. Indeed, avoiding injury-plagued players is a must.)

The changing room has, in parts, grown aged, tired and stale, with some players worn down by years of intense work and season after season of slogging it out (but as always, a good summer break can help).

Add injuries, and it’s just been a difficult situation; made worse by so many players knowing, or fearing, they’ll be leaving (which leads to a kind of drift). The same thing has happened at Leicester, where players who massively achieved have fallen so far after big cup runs sapped their energy, and players were out of contract; other clubs have got massively worse by signing too many new players.

But just two midfielders in their early 20s could bring the average age of the Liverpool side down to 25-26, before even getting onto the brilliant Stefan Bajcetic or fast-improving Harvey Elliott.

Liverpool need hungry, energetic, skilful players with points to prove, to add to the ones who remain; indeed, to give them extra energy, and a fresh impetus.

In other words, players like – at the point they signed for the Reds – Sadio Mané, Alisson, Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino, Gini Wijnaldum, Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, Andy Robertson, et al.

One bonus Liverpool have, to offset the near-certain lack of Champions League football next season, is that there are clearly routes to the XI for midfielders.

(In addition to the status of the club, the drawing power of Klopp, the obvious appeal of playing in a team with Salah, van Dijk, Alisson, Thiago, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Luis Díaz, et al.)

The team has a clear area where almost anyone would be an improvement, with at least three midfielders departing this summer, and others ageing out.

Normally I’d say be careful about what you lose when adding players (i.e. when the Reds needed the bite of Paul Ince in 1997, they lost the Xavi-like ball retention of John Barnes; Ince won more tackles, but often as a tackle was his second touch, and Barnes was missed, because he never gave the ball away).

However, Liverpool’s midfield has been so poor this season that there’s not an awful lot to lose, and more to gain. (Fingers crossed that, if not sold, Fabinho will rediscover his mojo, but close to turning 30, I’d be tempted to cash in, as I’ve said since late last year; equally, he could be revived as a handy squad player.)

Anyone signed won't be guaranteed a starting berth, as Klopp won't give guarantees, but some rival clubs are overstocked with midfielders right now. Man City and Chelsea face investigations and/or the threat of FFP breaches (and have lots of midfielders already, as do Real Madrid and Bayern Munich), and Barcelona could have to sell rather than buy. The market could be interesting. Even Arsenal have an established midfield, with Jorginho already brought in during 2023 for the bench.

There are lots of great options out there to rebuild the Reds' midfield; new sensations arrive on the scene all the time, and Klopp's Reds have rarely dealt in buying superstars, just creating them.

Then there’s the possibility of retooling Trent Alexander-Arnold for a to return to his youth team position, given that the Reds have two excellent young right-backs emerging/returning (and the more defensively-sound Joe Gomez, still only 25, when needed, with Gomez's last injury taking up to two years to fully recover from according to those who have suffered it; don't write the lad off, certainly as a handy, low-maintenance squad player).

Moving Alexander-Arnold never made sense before, but it might now. He'd have to adjust, but it's not like he doesn't play in midfield spaces anyway, or that he didn't grow up in the role. Or, if the midfield is much stronger due to new arrivals, he could thrive more in his usual role.

Potential Targets

In the second half of this piece, below, I’ll discuss the players who seem genuinely linked to the Reds – out of about 50 touted – and those I think are gettable (and whom I rate).

Plus, I will include some scouting analysis excerpts from Mizgan Masani, who writes a weekly column for the separate TTT Transfer Hub & Deep Dives (the £3.50 subscription fee funds his work on the articles), and has covered some of the players.

Meanwhile, this, the TTT Main Hub, is £4.99 a month and it's where you get all the debate, and the rest of this article, as well as other paywalled articles.