The Mailbox reckons Manchester City have ‘spaffed’ £250m on nine flops, while this season proves Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp are ‘insanely arrogant’…
On the subject of transfer mistakes, it is silly to group players who failed to perform alongside players who had unexpected injury problems. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was not a transfer mistake in any shape or form based on what he was doing in 2017/18 before his knee injury against Roma. Thiago is less obviously defensible, as he had experienced injury trouble earlier in his career. I could be wrong on this, but it looks like he did not have (m)any injuries for the two seasons prior to transferring to Liverpool in 2020. If that is the case, I would argue this is also a case of a signing being unexpectedly impacted by injuries.
Generally speaking, if rival fans want to say “Liverpool made more than 1 transfer mistake in Keita”, fine, but don’t forget the fact that Liverpool’s transfer recruitment during the Edwards/Klopp era has been superior to every other club’s besides Manchester City’s, and that the success rate was noteworthy enough to inspire various articles about it over the years.
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On City’s signings which did not work out as required, I’m not sure Andy’s list is exhaustive. I’m wondering about Nolito, Danilo, Cancelo, Douglaz Luiz, Angeliño, Porro, Ferran Torres, Sergio Gómez, Nunes and Kovacic. I’m definitely not saying each of them belongs on this list, I’m sure that at least a few of them made useful contributions, but adding some of these names would surely be more accurate than claiming the only 3 mistakes were Bravo Mendy and Phillips. The Jack Grealish transfer is probably the best illustration of Manchester City’s financial advantage, though. Regardless of whether he is good enough to play for City, 117m EUR is not a transfer fee any other PL club is paying for a nice-to-have option. Other PL clubs aren’t signing Doku to replace him 24 months later.
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland
