The Premier League champions are splashing the cash
When Jurgen Klopp left Liverpool in 2024, he had overseen the lowest net spend of the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’, despite remaining competitive, and winning a Premier League title and Champions League to boot.
Now, the Premier League champions are splashing the cash with Arne Slot, much like the rest of the top flight. They have spent £300m this summer on Hugo Ekitike for £79m, £29m on Giorgi Mamardashvili, Florian Wirtz for a club-record £116m, Jeremie Frimpong for £29m and Milos Kerkez for £40m.
Fans inside and outside of Anfield are raising a couple pertinent questions. The first being: how can Liverpool afford this in the current PSR climate? And the second: what must Jurgen Klopp think?
Klopp would more or less toe the company line when it came to Liverpool’s spending – a net spend of just £346m over the eight-and-a-half years, compared to Chelsea’s £1bn, Man Utd’s £1bn, Arsenal’s £702m, Man City’s £630m and Tottenham’s £570m – but he failed to convince a large section of Liverpool’s support.
In 2019 he said: “We have to pay bills. Sorry. Everybody has to pay bills; we have to pay bills. We invested money in this team. Now it looks like we are not. But we are not in this fantasia land where you just get whatever you want. You cannot do it constantly. It looks like there are four clubs in the world who can do it constantly. Madrid, Barcelona, (Man) City and PSG. Whatever they need, they do. You cannot compare that. That is the situation.”
He also said in 2023: “For us, it is the Liverpool Way. We do it properly and do it the right way; we don’t overspend, we always spend what we earned either on the team, a stand or a building.”
And later in 2023 he said: “We are not in dreamland and it is not we can just point at players and bring them in. There is a lot of work to do. Sometimes one door closes and the other opens up.”
There is no doubt Klopp built several competitive teams with more prudent spending – and some of the most exciting sides the Premier League has ever seen. Granted, they spent mega money on Virgil van Dijk and Alisson relative to the transfer market at that time in 2018, but it’s fair to say these signings were pound-for-pound worth the expense.
But even with the success that came with it, many Liverpool fans are left wondering what could have been if they had stretched their wallets further. They may be the last side to be able to create success with a relatively low net spend.
How can Liverpool afford to spend £300m this summer?
With so much narrative around ridiculous Premier League spending in the previous 12 months, plenty are wondering how Liverpool can afford to spend the big bucks this summer.
This tactic is a huge departure from the risk-averse ways of previous years, but the answer to the change of tack is multi-layered.
Firstly, Liverpool bought just one first-team player in 18 months, £10m on Federico Chiesa. There was money in the bank.
Secondly, Liverpool have no Profit and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) issues, mainly thanks to their years of prudent spending and productive sales of talent. Some of Liverpool’s sales in the early Klopp era were genius – an unproven Jordon Ibe for £15m, a flailing Christian Benteke for £25m, Philippe Coutinho, with a clause meaning Barcelona couldn’t sign Liverpool’s other stars, for £120m, and an unproductive Danny Ings for £20m are just a few of the ways Liverpool kept their operation economically productive.
Thirdly, the new deal with Adidas is worth a reported £60m per year, double the return of the previous Nike kit deal.
This likely won’t be the start of Liverpool spending window after window – with key members of the squad ageing, it’s more likely this splurge is intended to set Slot’s side up for sustainable success over the coming years.
Whereas Chelsea and Manchester United’s spending takes a bit more explaining – Google searches for ‘amortisation meaning’ have gone through the roof in the past 18 months – it’s difficult to criticise Liverpool for treating themselves.
