Almost £300m worth of talent added to a squad that cruised to the Premier League title last season and Liverpool may not be spent yet. Whatever they’re smoking in Boston is having an unusual effect on a global fanbase.
Big-spending Liverpool, blowing competitors from Bayern Munich to Newcastle out of the water with their pulling and spending power, may be a strange reality for supporters who not so long ago sang: “The Reds have got no money, but we’ll still win the league.” The chant can be retired now that the first part is demonstrably untrue. It always was.
When Hugo Ekitiké completes his move from Eintracht Frankfurt, for a deal that Liverpool would be delighted to reach £79m because it would represent further success at club and individual level, the champions will have made two of the three biggest signings in their history in the space of five weeks. Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool’s Boston-based owner, would have been prepared to break the club’s transfer record twice in that timeframe but for Newcastle’s insistence that Alexander Isak is not for sale.
It appears a radical departure by FSG to build so ambitiously from a position of strength, while sending an ominous warning to Premier League rivals with designs on closing the gap. But Liverpool maintain there has been no change in strategy and that the club continue to be run along self-sustaining lines. The approach that enabled them to transform Jürgen Klopp’s team in 2018 by buying Alisson and Virgil van Dijk with the proceeds of Philippe Coutinho’s £142m sale to Barcelona has also shaped plans for sustained success under Arne Slot. The benefits of thinking long term have paid off. No profitability and sustainability issues here.
The answer to how Liverpool have been able to spend heavily this summer is dull, out of step with many clubs throughout the English football pyramid and anathema to those besotted with winning the transfer window over genuine prizes: financial discipline.
Liverpool last spent big in the summer of 2023 when rebuilding Klopp’s midfield to the tune of £145m while recouping £52m from the sales of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson to the Saudi Pro League. Not a penny was spent in the January transfer windows of 2024 and 2025, and last summer, Slot’s first in charge, brought an outlay of only £10m for Federico Chiesa, the amount received from Salzburg for Bobby Clark. Liverpool made a profit of £42.5m last summer with the sales of Fábio Carvalho and Sepp van den Berg to Brentford (if taking the initial £25m for Valencia’s goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili – agreed 12 months ago – into this year’s expenditure). The club’s faith in the rebuilding work of 2023 explained their reticence to re-enter the market in three successive windows, and was vindicated with title No 20 in April.
The importance of Champions League qualification to Liverpool’s financial health was evident in their last set of published accounts, for the year to 31 May 2024, which showed a £57m loss mainly as a consequence of missing out that year and competing in the Europa League. Revenue for this year is projected to pass £700m for the first time with the club making more than £80m from the return to the Champions League and about £180m from the triumphant Premier League campaign. Matchday and commercial revenue will have increased as Liverpool continue to benefit from the redevelopments of the Main Stand and Anfield Road Stand.
This summer’s transfer business – with Ekitiké soon to join the record signing Florian Wirtz, Mamardashvili, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez, the young Hungarian goalkeeping prospect Armin Pecsi and goalkeeping cover Freddie Woodman – leaves the champions looking stronger on paper before their title defence. Any predictions for Liverpool this season, of course, must be tempered by the unknown and unimaginable factor of a team dealing with the tragic death of one of their own in Diogo Jota.
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There is certainly greater depth and versatility to Slot’s squad, plus more opportunity to rotate beyond domestic cup competitions. Slot tended to stick with a trusted core of players in the Premier League last season. There is no disputing the methods of a coach who wins the title in his debut season at Liverpool with ease and four matches to spare, although Slot himself suspected fatigue played a part in the Carabao Cup final defeat by Newcastle.
Ekitiké, a France Under-21 international who scored 22 goals in his one and only season at Eintracht, may not be Liverpool’s final signing of a statement summer. The Premier League champions remain keen on Crystal Palace’s central defender Marc Guéhi and there would be appetite for another forward should Bayern eventually succeed in their pursuit of Luis Díaz.
Liverpool maintain Díaz is not for sale and that their €100m (£86.8m) valuation of the Colombia international is for accounting purposes rather than an asking price. That may be so but if that valuation is met and Díaz departs, and Liverpool get what they want for Darwin Núñez (£55m), Harvey Elliott (£40m-plus), Chiesa (£10m) and Tyler Morton (£15m), the club could yet recoup more than £200m before the transfer window closes on 1 September. A well-run champion does not ease up.
