The summer transfer window of 2023 was defined by two things; the huge amount of money being spent on acquiring talent by both the Saudi Arabian Pro League and Chelsea.
On one hand there was huge sums of money on offer by SPL sides, the biggest four being backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the owners of Newcastle United. Three Liverpool players opted to leave the Premier League for what was being offered in Saudi, with Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino all departing.
For Firmino it was a decision made at the end of his Reds contract, but for Henderson and Fabinho it saw Liverpool recoup £52m in fees from their sales to Al-Ettifaq and Al-Ittihad, respectively. That was just £8m shy of the cost of outlay for both, and after a combined 17 years of service to the club.
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On the other hand there was Chelsea. The aggressive spend to hoover up promising talent from across the globe began in the January window following the takeover of the club by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in May 2022. Since their arrival, more than £1bn has been spent in terms of transfer fees across three windows, with the club breaking the British transfer record twice during that period, first with the £105m signing of Enzo Fernandez from Benfica in January, then with the £115m capture of Moises Caicedo from Brighton & Hove Albion during the summer.
Liverpool had been linked with Fernandez but a deal was never really expected to materialise. But in the case of Caicedo, the Reds had offered £111m during the summer, prompting Chelsea to end their game of cat and mouse with Brighton and pony up the big bucks to make the deal happen. And happen it did, with Caicedo rejecting Liverpool’s advances and choosing Stamford Bridge instead.
Just days later another Liverpool target who the club had looked close to sealing, Romeo Lavia, opted to do exactly the same, signing for Chelsea in a deal worth up to £58m from Southampton. It was a bruising few days for the club, coming on the back of a bitterly disappointing season where they finished fifth and missed out on the lucrative Champions League for the first time since 2016.
A rebuild and reset, particularly in midfield, was a vital theme for Jurgen Klopp’s men heading into the summer. While the argument never goes away with regards to the transfer spend under Fenway Sports Group at Liverpool compared to the club’s rivals, the defined recruitment strategy has led to more wins than losses in the transfer market, particularly over the last six or seven years. But the summer saw FSG give the green light for a mammoth Caicedo bid, while figures in excess of £50m were suggested for Lavia. Both players, while enjoying fine individual seasons in 2022/23, had little in the way of top level experience, and making such big plays required an element of risk.
FSG have largely been risk averse in the market, with the focus on data analytics and having the correct processes and data pipelines, allied with the very best people in the right positions, meaning that as much risk as could possibly be removed in terms of players acquisitions was over a period of time.
This season Liverpool have flown out of the traps and look to have their verve and hunger back. They look like bonafide title challengers again. The additions of Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig, Alexis Mac Allister from Brighton, Ryan Gravenberch from Ajax and Wataru Endo from VfB Stuttgart have completed remodelled the middle of the pitch, and the benefits of that are arriving already.
At Chelsea it has been tougher. Mauricio Pochettino has endured similar struggles that have been a theme of the West London side under the ownership of Boehly and Clearlake, with Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter having both departed under the owners’ rein in a little over 18 months.
Chelsea sit 10th after 14 games, already 12 points adrift of Liverpool in second. For a side that requires Champions League football to return to underpin the massive spend, spread out over a longer period of time through the tactic of offering deals of seven, eight and nine years to reduce the annual amortisation costs that appear on the balance sheet (how transfers are accounted for), it is not what was expected when they continued to shell out big money.
Data produced by analysts at the CIES Football Observatory in Switzerland, which uses statistical analysis to work out the market value of players, suggests that in the case of both Caicedo and Lavia, the market value of the two combined is £87.3m less than the transfer outlay, although those deals include add-ons for both players to reach the eventual transfer sum. The add-ons account for £20m, meaning that the overpayment could be drawn down to £67.3m in terms of the market value at present.
In comparison, Liverpool added Szoboszlai for £60m, Mac Allister for £35m, Gravenberch for £34m and Endo for £16.2m. That represented a total of £145.2m for the addition of four midfield players, a sum £27.8m less than the combined £173m outlay that Chelsea put on the line for two players in Caicedo and Lavia.
Endo, at 30, was the outlier in terms of age, but with regards to Szoboszlai (23), Mac Allister (24) and Gravenberch (21) all fit the young profile with plenty of longevity in their careers and potential new ceilings to break through in terms of talent.
But when compared to Chelsea, using CIES data, the Reds’ recruitment has performed significantly better.
The market values of Szoboszlai and Mac Allister are both pegged by CIES analysts at €100m (£85.7m) each. Gravenberch’s has remained the same at €40m (£34m), while Endo has seen a £7.6m drop, his value placed at €10m (£8.6m).
In terms of market value, Liverpool’s summer business for four players has reached a figure of £214m, a sum £68.8m higher than the outlay, an increase of 47.4% compared to a reduction of 50.4%. A difference of £128.3m between the two clubs.
That is just looking at the midfield rebuild of Liverpool when compared to the two targets that they had actively pursued. With regards to other additions at Chelsea, Mykhailo Mudryk, Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella are all valued at significantly less than the sums that were paid to acquire their services, while Liverpool’s major additions in the same windows have all performed well in terms of market value, with Darwin Nunez pegged at €100m (£85.7m) around the same sum he was acquired for including add-ons, pointing a rise in his actual market value. While Cody Gakpo, a January arrival for an initial £37m from PSV Eindhoven, has a market value now of €80m (£68.6m), an increase of 77.3% in less than a year at Anfield.
The season is still just 14 games old, and whether those values hold true and deliver success for the Reds this season remains to be seen, but in terms of finding winners in the transfer market, Liverpool looked to have found their groove once more, and that being the most willing to pay the biggest sum might not be the best course of action.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
