It’s been quite the ride for those of a Liverpool persuasion. Over the past decade, the Reds have gone from being a Premier League laughing stock to one of the most imperious outfits on the continent.
Jurgen Klopp conquered English football and handed the Anfield side their sixth Champions League title too. He willed Liverpool into an incredible, attractive unit and left the squad in perfect shape for someone like Arne Slot to come in and take the reins.
Now, with Manchester City in a spin and Arsenal and Chelsea not quite so impressive, Liverpool are the early favourites to win Europe’s top competition in 2024/25 and are four points clear at the Premier League summit having played a game less than second-placed Chelsea.
Life is good, but it could be better yet in the months and years to come. It’s crucial to understand that the Merseysiders are technically in their first iteration, their nascent stage. Slot inherited a wonderfully talented crop, but he’s still pumping his teachings into the club.
Let’s put the brakes on a moment and remember the last time Liverpool were in their early stage as an elite-level outfit. Way back in 2017/18, they had broken free of mediocrity and were back in the Champions League, and oh how fun Klopp’s side were.
When Klopp's Liverpool were pure… fun
It was the year that Liverpool suffered heartbreak at the final stage of Europe’s elite club competition, and perhaps it felt like a once-in-a-generation opportunity missed, but Klopp’s lads rebounded to win the thing one year later.
That 2017/18 season, however, was one of excitement and incredible moments, Klopp having birthed an iconic team but not yet fashioned it into something sustainable. Albeit, he came within a whisker.
Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino were playing their first term as a trio, and though they went on to achieve great things over a number of years, there was a remarkable period with Philippe Coutinho nestled in behind.
The Brazilian playmaker had been at Liverpool since January 2013, when he left Inter Milan in a bargain deal worth £8.5m, and for a while stood as the lonely bright spark in a grey pre-Klopp world.
With 54 goals and 45 assists across 201 outings for the Redmen, he was a real talent, indeed a beacon of hope, but Coutinho saved his finest football for those final few months.
Having handed in a transfer request in August 2017 as Barcelona lurked, seen it rejected by Klopp and his crew, and then played with a feverish intensity that lifted Liverpool into standing as one of the finest attacking teams on the continent.
Matches (starts)
14 (13)
Goals
7
Assists
6
Pass accuracy
79%
Key passes*
2.9
Dribbles*
2.8
Tackles*
1.2
Total duels won*
5.6
When Coutinho left, it felt pretty devastating, but La Blaugrana forked out an English-record-breaking £142m to bring the magician over to Catalonia, where he never hit the same giddy heights.
Liverpool then had the resources to mould Klopp’s project into something capable of not just dazzling in moments, but offering tangible routes toward illustrious prosperity with a consistency that fans could scarcely have dreamt of only months earlier.
Klopp described Coutinho as a “genius of a player” during the early stage of his tenure, but he didn’t prove to be indispensable and was actually the perfect sale for an outfit on the rise.
Why selling Coutinho was an incredible success
You could grind it down to a simple sentence: the stunning financial gain filled Liverpool’s coffers to the brim.
With Michael Edwards and Klopp not yet divorced and fractious toward each other, Liverpool were able to identify and swoop for targets deemed capable of taking the club to the highest level of European football.
Southampton centre-back Virgil van Dijk was signed in a deal worth £75m, a world record for a defender, in January 2018, and Roma goalkeeper Alisson Becker arrived the following summer for £67m, in the wake of the Champions League final defeat against Real Madrid that ended Loris Karius’ Anfield career.
Smart recruitment has been central throughout Liverpool’s successes of the past decade, but it’s clear that without Coutinho’s sale for such a staggering sum, the same heights wouldn’t have been reached, for the Reds would have been forced to settle for lesser parts in one area or another.
Just imagine a world where Van Dijk stands in Chelsea blue, playing for the Londoners after Liverpool were unable to act upon their vested interest.
How about you picture a Champions League landscape with Alisson Becker between the Santiago Bernebeu sticks, for he rejected Real Madrid in favour of Klopp’s Liverpool.
Neither of these dreadful eventualities proved to be anything more than paper talk. Talk about a watershed moment. The very framework of Liverpool’s prosperity over the past eight years is built on Coutinho’s sale, arguably the most important piece of transfer business conducted since Klopp’s arrival way back when.
Liverpool could count on Coutinho, now 32, for a moment of magic, but found something better in the players welcomed with the funds collected from his sale.
And for Coutinho, surely a sense of regret. Despite winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich and two La Liga titles with Barcelona, he’s indeed failed to ever reach the stunning level that he displayed under Klopp’s wing, having now been on Aston Villa’s books for the past several seasons.
That said, the Brazilian has spent the past few years out on loan, with Al Duhail in Dubai and now Vasco de Gama in his homeland, now valued at just £5m, as per Transfermarkt.
It would seem that Liverpool hit the jackpot at the perfect time with this one, not least because his dramatic fall in market value has left him worth less than Slot’s firing player Wataru Endo, who is 31 years old and valued at £11m.
The fact that even an ageing Endo – who looks set to depart in January – is worth more than Liverpool’s record-breaking sale is a testament to his decline, with the playmaker perhaps wondering what might have been had he never left Anfield behind.
Sold for 1823% more: Liverpool struck gold on Klopp's "outstanding talent"
Liverpool made a great profit selling him
ByJoe NuttallDec 12, 2024