Liverpool’s £15 million club: How a transfer strategy based on selling became the envy of the Premier League

The recurring theme of selling back-ups to pay for pivotal players is a strategy many clubs have tried to adopt but which few have pursued as successfully

Jurgen Klopp has had to field questions about Liverpool’s success rate in the transfer market. For obvious reasons, they relate to a track record of signings who have succeeded. And yet their net spend is proof they have tended to be fine sellers as well as buyers. Philippe Coutinho’s £142 million move to Barcelona was the most lucrative move, as well as the most high-profile example that few go on to better things after leaving Klopp’s Liverpool, but there is a different breed of departure.

Unlike Coutinho, they do not necessarily gravitate to the most glamorous of departures. Indeed, unlike him, they were rarely first choices at Anfield. Yet, time and again, they help fund the arrivals that come to be seen as such coups. Welcome to the world of the £15m sale.

Neco Williams is the latest case in point. Liverpool actually received slightly more – some £17m– for the Wales full-back when he joined Nottingham Forest. In itself, it stacks up as good business: his replacement, Calvin Ramsay, cost £4m, rising to £6.5m. Williams never felt destined to be anything more than Trent Alexander-Arnold’s understudy at Anfield. Well as he has done in international football, he has started a mere six Premier League games.

But his price makes him part of a recent tradition. Takumi Minamino left a couple of weeks earlier for a similar fee and, as he cost £7.25m, another useful profit. The Japanese was Liverpool’s top scorer in the FA and Carabao Cups last season, but he featured in neither final and only began five top-flight games for them. Between them, they brought in about as much as Sadio Mane did, or more than half of Darwin Nunez’s initial cost.

They have company in the £15m club. There are others who commanded sums in that region and who have funded the acquisitions of more pivotal players. In 2018, the Coutinho money famously paid for Virgil van Dijk and Alisson. But Liverpool also sold Dominic Solanke, for £19m, and Danny Ward, for £12m: between them, they went a long way to providing Fabinho’s transfer fee.

Go back to 2016, Klopp’s first summer in charge, and Jordon Ibe went for £15m and Joe Allen for £13m; the Wales midfielder, unlike most others in this category, had at least been a regular for much of his time at the club. Combine their prices and they almost amount to the sum Liverpool shelled out for Mane then, or more than facilitated the purchase of Gini Wijnaldum. The recurring theme is that Liverpool could pay for pivotal players by selling back-ups. It is a financial model many have tried to adopt but which few have pursued as successfully.

It depends in part on the buying power of other clubs. Covid had an impact further down the footballing food chain, with a knock-on effect for Liverpool. It made it harder for them to sell when fewer would pay £15m for a reserve. Include loan fees, however, and Marko Grujic and Harry Wilson, both of whom were initially available for £15m but raised lesser amounts, probably belong in the bracket, too. They paid for much of Ibrahima Konate; especially if Xherdan Shaqiri is included, though the Swiss is a prime example of a player who Liverpool were unable to sell for their valuation in the Covid economy.

Darwin Nunez is Liverpool’s latest big buy funded by their transfer strategy (Getty Images)

And, inevitably, there are those who got away. Divock Origi may have always had more pedigree and left a more lasting impact on Liverpool history. He departed to a host of tributes, with Klopp invariably referring to him as a legend, but on a free transfer. Had he gone a year earlier, when Liverpool were surprised by the lack of offers, the chances are they would have looked for around £15m.

It was the price placed on Nat Phillips’ head, too. Buyers’ reticence is understandable; they would in effect be paying for the player seen in the last 10 games of the 2020-21 season but neither before nor since, despite a famous Cruyff turn in the San Siro. Perhaps it shows there are limits to the paradigm.

But it reflects Liverpool’s ability to acquire and develop fine players, as well as the sheen attached to Klopp’s side. There may be a Liverpool premium to some of the prices; they come with the sense that the coaching and culture at Anfield add value. In that respect, and though the prices reflect the inflation in the game, there are similarities with some of the support acts Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United used to sell.

It must make them the envy of clubs – the modern-day United, Everton, Arsenal – who have struggled to get meaningful fees for fringe figures. It is a moot point how much value for money some of the £15m men have delivered for their buyers, though Wilson and Solanke helped secure promotions last summer, but the conveyor belt continues. Expect some of Klopp’s second-string players to leave next year. And, in all probability, for around £15m.