Nine players Liverpool have signed since UCL win shows worrying transfer trend

Liverpool earned nearly £100million for beating Tottenham Hotspur in Madrid in 2019 to win the Champions League.

But what they’ve done with that money in the transfer market since makes for grim reading for Reds fans.

Since that date in Madrid, they’ve forked out roughly £85m in transfer fees across four windows, but have only bought two players for their starting XI.

The Covid-19 pandemic last summer disrupted their transfer plans, and they spent a miniscule fee for both Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota – roughly £5m for Thiago and £4.5m for Jota.

Liverpool ’s Premier League title defence is in tatters after they were demolished by Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday.

Speaking afterwards, Reds hero Jamie Carragher stated that Liverpool needed to make three marquee signings in order to galvanise the squad.

But in the past four transfer windows, they’ve only done that with two of their signings – Jota and Thiago.

The two new acquisitions – who will cost a combined £61m when add-ons and installments are paid off to Bayern Munich and Wolves – both went straight into the starting XI when they were available to do so.

The same can’t be said for their other signings, many of whom have either been replacement signings or young players.

Liverpool were quiet in the 2019 transfer window after becoming European champions, though they did sign wonderkid Harvey Elliott from Fulham and young centre-back Sepp van den Berg.

Their only other business of the window was to bring in Adrian after the veteran goalkeeper was released by West Ham.

Despite winning the Champions League, they didn’t properly improve their squad, as none of the signings made were done to improve the starting XI.

They didn’t necessarily need to, however, as they then went on to win the Premier League the following year by a landslide.

Takumi Minamino joined midway through the campaign for a reported £7.25m from RB Salzburg, but failed to make an impact and joined Southampton on loan just a year later.

After winning the Premier League title they also brought in Kostas Tsimikas, but the Greek was brought in to be a back-up to Andy Robertson, and he’s barely played as a result.

Liverpool went into the January transfer window adamant that they would not make any signings, despite injuries to Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez.

But injuries to Joel Matip and Fabinho forced them into action, and they are subsequently made last-minute moves to Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies, both of whom wouldn’t have been signed if it hadn’t been for the injuries.

While Kabak could be a long-term option at the back, especially if Matip leaves before long, it seems unlikely he’ll be first-choice ahead of either Van Dijk or Gomez, meaning they’ve once again only signed back-up players despite their lofty standing in world football.