There was plenty of frustration among Liverpool fans at the end of the transfer window after what proved to be a largely quiet summer on the recruitment front.
In fact, beyond the addition of Ibrahima Konate, the Reds entered this season with pretty much the same squad that finished the last, though boosted by key personnel such as Virgil Van Dijk returning from long term injury.
Dissatisfaction among fans was only exasperated by business done elsewhere, with several of Liverpool’s Premier League rivals investing heavily in their squads.
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Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United all topped the Premier League’s spending chart having each splurged over £100million on new players.
However, as it stands, only Chelsea of the four have managed to keep pace with Liverpool in these opening weeks of the Premier League season.
Rivals United spent the second-most this summer behind Arsenal, securing the services of Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphael Varane and former Liverpool target, Jadon Sancho.
Their capture of the latter in particular was a bitter pill for many Reds fans to swallow. Sancho has proven to be an exciting young attacker in Germany scoring 37 goals and registering 41 assists in his final 92 Bundesliga appearances, this breaks down to a remarkable 0.80 goals contributions per appearance.
Many fans thought he’d be a perfect addition to the Liverpool frontline due to his standout pace and dribbling abilities.
Liverpool officials clearly thought different though. That’s not to say he wasn’t ever considered by Michael Edwards and co, but that instead he perhaps just wasn’t deemed worthy of the costly £73million plus add ons to secure his signature, based on the potential impact he could have on this Liverpool side.
Given the quality already in place at Anfield, it’s hard for any one player to substantially improve the team, at least to an extent in which it’s easy to justify parting with such large sums of money.
At United it was different, their attack lacked the quality Liverpool’s did, particularly on the right where prior to Sancho’s arrival, they had no standout out right-sided attacker. Therefore their move for the 21-year-old made more sense.
Yet even so, it wasn’t without risk and so far, his impact has been far from what many United fans would have expected.
The England international has featured in all seven of United’s games so far this season, but has so far failed to register a single goal or assist.
Although it’s still more than possible that he will come good at Old Trafford, his slow start is a reminder that the anticipated impact of what a new player can have at new club can often be overstated and amplified.
Therefore based on that, plus their impressive start to the campaign, Liverpool look pretty justified so far in their conservative approach to transfers in the summer just gone.
