Liverpool and Man City have been in the market for new midfielders this summer. Pep Guardiola’s latest inquiry has been knocked back and it proves a wider point.
This summer has been a transfer window mainly for midfielders. Declan Rice cost Arsenal more than $130m, Jude Bellingham proved too expensive for Liverpool, and it seems likely that Moisés Caicedo will also get a big-money move eventually.
Now, Manchester City has made a move to sign a player that Liverpool supposedly considered last summer. Ahead of West Ham wrapping up a move for Lucas Paquetá from Lyon, Liverpool considered a hijack, journalist Adam Crafton said on The Athletic Football Podcast at the time.
Liverpool should have signed him last summer, even though David Moyes’ side paid $66m (£52m/€60m) for the Brazilian. Paquetá was a hit at the London Stadium and The Express relayed news that Liverpool was watching him as long ago as 2018, when he was still at Flamengo in Brazil.
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Imagine for a second that Liverpool had spent $66m on Paquetá: a Champions League place would surely have been secured. The Brazilian would have added plenty of energy in the center of the pitch and could have been a difference-maker. He would also fit perfectly in the attacking midfield number eight role that the Reds have employed following a change of system.
Manchester City is now keen on him, The Telegraph reports, but Pep Guardiola has been told that $89m (£70m/€81m) is not enough. Instead, a price tag of $108m (£85m/€98m) has been suggested for the player, who turns 26 later this month. The Daily Mail says that is the player’s release clause, but that it only comes into effect from 2024.
That sums up the new issue with Liverpool’s preferred strategy over the past few seasons in the transfer market. Usually, the Reds have allowed someone else to take the risk with a player before paying a premium for the safer option, as worked well with Alexis Mac Allister, thanks to his handy release clause, and previously players like Mohamed Salah, who arrived for a similarly relatively low fee.
Now, though, the premium is already being applied before the risk has been alleviated. Paquetá already cost $66m and will now cost significantly more. Roméo Lavia, with the risk still attached given he is only 19 and has only made 29 Premier League appearances, is being priced up at $64m (£50m/€58m) by Southampton.
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For Paquetá, you could read João Palhinha, for whom, until he got injured and talk of a move died down this summer, Fulham was demanding around three times what it paid for him a year ago. Matheus Nunes at Wolves is another name that made a big-money switch to a middling Premier League club with the idea being to get to a bigger club off the back of it.
The problem is, though, if a club is spending something like $50m or $60m on a player to begin with, if a bigger club comes in for him, the price tag is automatically going to be enormous. West Ham, Wolves, Brighton and the rest need some sort of incentive to take the ‘gamble’ and are also, as Premier League clubs, rich enough not to be desperate for the cash.
That leaves the bigger fish — in the case of Paquetá this summer, Manchester City, but in other cases, Liverpool — either needing to splash huge sums or take a few more calculated gambles of their own.
Liverpool has so far been reluctant to do that with players who are less of a sure thing, but perhaps that explains the change of approach with Lavia, for whom it has already made a bid as high as $58m (£46m/€53m). In an inflated market, Liverpool might be forced to spend a bit more on occasion than it might previously have liked, with Paquetá the latest example of why.
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