For three and a half years, Southampton would have been sick of the sight of Liverpool as the Reds plucked player after player from the Saints.
With £65m from selling Luis Suarez to Barcelona in the summer of 2014 burning a hole in their pocket, Liverpool snapped up Rickie Lambert (£4.5m), Adam Lallana (£25m), and Dejan Lovren (£20m) from the South Coast club as they looked to build on their title miss from the year before.
Social media ‘banter’ accounts would take great glee as the Reds finished that season in a disappointing sixth, just two points and a place above their Southern ‘feeder club’. Nathaniel Clyne would follow in their footsteps in a £12.5m deal in the summer of 2015, as Liverpool’s struggles continued.
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Jurgen Klopp would replace Brendan Rodgers as manager in October 2015, but they would still only record an eighth-placed finish. Missing out on Europe altogether as a result, Southampton would qualify for the Europa League as they finished sixth - three points ahead of the Reds.
Sadio Mane (£34m) was the next man to trade St. Mary’s for Anfield in the summer of 2016 at the start of Klopp’s first full season. When Southampton beat Liverpool in the League Cup semi-finals, it seemed they would again have the last laugh. Investing the Reds’ cash wisely back into their squad, they were certainly enjoying better fortunes on the pitch.
Yet Klopp’s Liverpool would qualify for the Champions League that season, for only the second time since 2009, and have since gone from strength to strength.
Of course the Reds were aided by belatedly breaking their club-record to sign Virgil van Dijk in a £75m deal from the Saints in January 2018. The transfer would have been completed the previous summer if Liverpool’s conduct hadn’t irritated Southampton and resulted in them issuing an official apology and withdrawing interest, but by this point their frequent shopping at St. Mary's had paid off as the same 'banter' accounts were forced to eat their words.
Suddenly transformed into genuine title and Champions League contenders, they have won every major honour on offer to them in the years that followed. Shopping in a different market as a result, they haven’t come knocking at St. Mary’s since, though the Saints would at least see the favour returned to a degree courtesy of signing Danny Ings in a £20m deal and Takumi Minamino on loan.
And while Lambert was moved on after just one season, the remaining quintet all contributed to the Reds’ Champions League final appearance in 2017/18 in their first campaign back in Europe’s elite competition. And while Clyne would fall by the wayside as Trent Alexander-Arnold emerged, Lallana, Lovren, Mane, and Van Dijk would all finish 2020 as English, European, and world champions.
Throw in Southampton academy graduate Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who was signed from Arsenal in a £40m deal in August 2017, and the Saints could be forgiven for looking on rather enviously at Liverpool’s transformation, wondering what might have been had they been able to retain the services of such stars. Though the less said about former Southampton loanee Steven Caulker’s brief Anfield loan stint in 2016, the better.
While the Reds have risen off the back of their South Coast spending spree, the Saints have moved in the opposite direction. Once competing in Europe and challenging for domestic cups, they have found themselves in a relegation battle more times than not since 2017/18.
They would finish 17th that season, avoiding the drop by just three points, with a 16th-place finish and five-point advantage over the bottom three following in 2018/19.
The 2019/20 campaign would at least see them back in mid-table, while they would be comfortably clear of the bottom three despite finishing 15th the following year. But last season such flirtations resumed as they again finished 15th but this time were only five points clear of the bottom three.
And this season, with two games left to play, their luck has run out, with today's 2-0 home defeat to Southampton confirming their relegation to the Championship.
As a result of such struggles, the Reds have been tipped to shop at St. Mary’s once again and add to FSG’s £171m South Coast outlay.
Football Insider reported that Liverpool have scouted James Ward-Prowse this season ahead of a potential summer move as the Reds look to revamp their midfield. It is not the first time they have been linked with the Southampton skipper, with Goal reporting he had previously been looked at in the summer of 2021.
While Liverpool wouldn’t move for the England international at the time, Aston Villa would see a £25m bid rejected. Off the back of that interest, the midfielder would sign a new five-year contract that saw him made the best-paid player in Southampton’s history on a reported £100k a week. Crucially, such a deal did not include a release clause.
Football Insider claimed that should the Saints suffer relegation, Ward-Prowse will push to leave the club and could be available for £40m.
The Reds have been opportunists in the past when it comes to shopping at relegated clubs. They signed Gini Wijnaldum from Newcastle United (£25m) and Andy Robertson from Hull City (£10m) in the summers of 2016 and 2017 respectively. The following year, they activated a £13.5m relegation release clause in Xherdan Shaqiri’s Stoke City contract in the, before snapping up Harvey Elliott at the end of his Fulham contract in 2019 - with a £4.3m compensation package eventually decided by tribunal.
Meanwhile, following Southampton’s previous relegation from the Premier League in 2005, they brought in Peter Crouch in a £7m deal in what was their first permanent signing from the Saints for 93 years.
Kopites will perhaps raise their eyebrows at reported interest in Ward-Prowse, especially for a £40m fee. Such links perhaps demonstrate how their longlist is longer than normal at this stage of the season, given the uncertainty regarding whether they finish in the top four and count on the riches of Champions League football or not.
Yet while links persist with the likes of Alexis Mac Allister, Mason Mount and Matheus Nunes, it is clear that Liverpool need more than one new midfielder as part of their planned summer revamp.
Naby Keita and Oxlade-Chamberlain are almost certain to depart on Bosman transfers at the end of their contract, while Juventus loanee Arthur Melo will return to Turin. Vice-captain James Milner is also out of contract, and is set to sign for Brighton & Hove Albion. Meanwhile, Fabinho will join Jordan Henderson and Thiago Alcantara on the wrong side of 30 later this year, with all three arguably past their best.
Whether the 28-year-old Ward-Prowse could be the answer in that sense is debatable, especially given his lack of experience at the top end of the Premier League or in the Champions League. But his homegrown status at least ticks one box that the Reds need to fill.
Klopp has praised the dead ball specialist publicly in the past too, warning his side last May: “Don't make any silly fouls, because Ward-Prowse shoots the ball from any corner of the pitch into the goal. That's the challenge we face.” Given Liverpool’s strength at set-pieces, with the likes of Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, and Darwin Nunez attacking the ball, the Saints skipper at Anfield could be a match made in heaven.
Boasting 48 goals and 37 assists from his 341 Premier League appearances for Southampton over the past 12 seasons, most outside onlookers won’t have seen much of Ward-Prowse beyond his incredible free-kick record. He boasts 17 Premier League goals from free-kicks, and is just one off David Beckham’s record total of 18. Yet having played under Ralph Hasenhuttl for four seasons, he is also adept at counter-pressing with such a trait certainly in-line with the Red’s own style.
In truth, on the face of it if Liverpool do move for Ward-Prowse it would perhaps suggest that they have both failed to qualify for next season’s Champions League. But the Southampton skipper is more than a lower-market alternative.
Sure, you perhaps wouldn’t want him being first-choice for the Reds in an ideal world. But, as was the case when signing Shaqiri, himself a dead ball specialist, back in 2018, there is no harm in having a quality squad option who is more than capable of starting and making an impact when turned to.
His age and potential price-tag perhaps make any move to Anfield seem unlikely at this stage. But when you look at what he still brings to the table and the boxes he would tick, if there was an opportunity to be had, Liverpool would be wise to at least look into it.
While in the past, shopping regularly at St. Mary's saw them mocked, the Reds eventually enjoyed the fruits of such acquisitions and haven't looked back since. This time no-one will be laughing. If Ward-Prose does leave Southampton at the end of the season, whichever club signs him will be completing a shrewd piece of business for a proven Premier League star.
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