The Data Dive - The 5 Players Liverpool Should Target This Summer
The Right Recruitment: Using data and analysis to suggest the five players Liverpool could have an eye on this summer and how they might spend their transfer war chest.
Richard Hughes could have a transfer war chest to work with this Summer in order to recruit new additions for Arne Slot’s Reds in preparation to challenge on all fronts next season. Liverpool had a quiet year in the transfer market, having only added Federico Chiesa and Georgi Mamardashvili to their ranks while letting go of young prospects such as Fabio Carvalho, Sepp van den Berg, and Bobby Clark on a permanent basis.
The club will be delighted that in a transfer window that saw four teams end on a total net spend of over £100 million, Liverpool dominated the Premier League having made a net profit.
Despite the raging success, Liverpool are expected to be busy in this summer’s transfer window as Arne Slot looks to build his own team in hopes of carrying on the success that his predecessor enjoyed for many years.
In the last part of this series, we covered which players are mooted to be heading for the exit door, and how much the club will expect to recoup from their player sales. If you haven’t already read part one, I would highly suggest reading that first by clicking HERE.
Among the players discussed, we predicted Liverpool could decide to keep hold of current fringe players such as Harvey Elliott, Jarell Quansah, and Wataru Endo as well as some regular starters who have been linked with a move away.
In total, we predicted that Liverpool would recoup at least £175 million from the sale of eight first-team players. That does sound rather ambitious, but in fact we decided to keep the sales quite realistic while also being conservative in our transfer value estimations.
Not all eight players will require replacing as Mamardashvili is already destined to replace Caoimhín Kelleher, and Ben Doak (on loan) as well as Tyler Morton have not played a single Premier League minute for the Reds.
So with that being said, how much could Richard Hughes have at his disposal this summer? Well over the last five years, Liverpool have spent an average of £50 million net. If you apply this to the income of £175 million then we would expect that Liverpool could have a staggering £225 million to spend.
That figure would almost certainly see the club spend the most of any team this summer so in the interest of realism we will try to keep the net spend well under the £50 million limit
Then there is the matter of wages. It can be difficult to ascertain exactly how much of the wage budget will be freed up, as no player’s contract details are publicly accessible, however with some high earners set for a departure it’s fair to assume that the wage budget should not be an issue either.
The players outlined in this piece should fit well within the club’s wage structure, and so some linked players such as Nico Williams and Victor Osimhen do not feature.
Lastly, the players outlined in this piece are not necessarily the absolute best options on the market or in fact the club’s primary target in these positions. In some cases, we have already covered some of the club’s primary targets on other data dive features and so it would be redundant to again suggest them here.
In all cases the players outlined have been chosen as a result of analysing their key attributes and strengths, and how those attributes would contribute in Arne Slot’s system.
Where the manager has commented on his vision for the ideal solution in any position, we will prioritize those attributes. In other cases where it is not absolutely clear what profile of player the manager has a preference for, we will suggest a signing that would fit well in Slot’s system and would help to fix other issues within the squad such as depth and cover.
In each position, we will first discuss the profile of player we are looking for, we will then put forward our suggestion on which player fits these characteristics and discuss the expected fee.
Conclusion:
So that concludes our two-part series predicting Liverpool’s transfer dealings this summer. Of course, the likelihood is that Liverpool will in fact move for different players than the ones we’ve suggested in this article.
At right back, Jeremie Frimpong looks the most likely at this stage. We will be doing a separate data dive into his profile very soon so keep an eye out for that. At left back, Liverpool look likely to make a move for Milos Kerkez, you can read our thoughts on that one HERE.
At the heart of the defense, Liverpool are one of the many suitors for Dean Huijsen although that deal looks difficult at this stage. If they cannot get Huijsen it seems that Jorrel Hato is their preferred choice, again, keep an eye out for a separate data dive coming soon in regard to what he could bring to the side.
It’s unclear at this stage if Liverpool will sign a midfielder this summer, but if they do Angelo Stiller presents an interesting set of attributes. He’s another one we will be covering soon.
In attack, the likes of Xavi Simons, Nico Williams, Bryan Mbuemo, Benjamin Sesko, and Antoine Semenyo have all been considered. There are also still murmurings of big moves for one of Alexander Isak or Julian Alvarez.
We could have chosen players from that long list of rumored targets but we chose to delve into some different profiles that may or may not be considered at the club. In part one we tried to keep player exits to a minimum while raising enough cash to bring in five realistic targets in while also following all the registration rules as required.
We raised £175 million from the proceeds of the sale of eight first-team players. We tried to keep the net spend as realistic as possible, with the predicted total amount spent equaling that of the sales, £175 million. That’s a net spend of exactly £0 for anyone getting lost in all the details here.
A massive thank you to anyone who’s read both parts of the series, if you enjoyed it we will be posting regular data dive segments throughout the summer transfer window and beyond. If you haven’t read the player profile or suggestions outlined above then I would highly suggest doing so. Nonetheless let’s take a look at how the Liverpool squad might look next season if they decide to follow our suggestions.
Thanks to @FBcharts for the data visuals in this article. Data comes from www.Fbref.com. If you would like to see another part to this series, suggesting 5 more players Liverpool should target this summer, please leave a comment.