Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Liverpool Echo

Sport

Paul Gorst

Liverpool have already made three controversial decisions before Jude Bellingham plan

Jude Bellingham Jurgen Klopp Nabil Fekir Van Dijk Football Gini Wijnaldum Jordan Henderson Sadio Mane Dortmund Southampton

For all the success that has come Liverpool's way during the tenure of Jurgen Klopp, the club has also had to develop a thick skin.

Despite lifting every top-level trophy available during a stunning period between 2019 and 2022, the sprawling, worldwide nature of the Reds' fanbase in the social media era means critiques - fair-minded or otherwise - have never been too far away.

That, in particular, goes for the club's ownership group, Fenway Sports Group, who even during Liverpool's best run since the 1980s have had accusations of parsimony thrown at them virtually every transfer window.

In truth, the bemoaning of plenty across platforms like Twitter will fall on deaf ears inside the corridors of the Boston-based organisation and those at Liverpool itself have never made calculated and serious business moves after gauging the temperature online.

Right so, of course. Any top-level club who bends to the prongs of the digital pitchforks cannot be considered a serious outfit when it comes to purely football operational decisions. That obstinate outlook, however, has not helped stem the tide of criticism that has washed over 'LFC Twitter' since it became clear that Liverpool would in fact be ending their long-standing interest in Borussia Dortmund's Jude Bellingham this week.

It has been decided that paying between £115m-130m for just one player when so much surgery is required on the squad is not the best course of action for the long-term strategy, particularly given the club are likely to have accepted they won't be bringing in funds from the Champions League next season.

Taken in isolation, it's a decision that is a sensible one. Liverpool can allocate their summer budget to a handful of different players rather than handing the lion's share to Dortmund for Bellingham. However talented the England international is at just 19, it has been decreed that more bodies are needed to inject some energy and quality into a flagging, ageing midfield that is set to lose Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita and James Milner on free transfers.

Understandably, having been allowed to dream of Bellingham's arrival for the best part of two years - a prospect that only intoxicated the fanbase further when the Dortmund star struck up very public friendships with Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold - supporters have now aired their frustrations at the latest developments.

VOTE: Have your say on the Bellingham saga in our special poll

Having flirted with Bellingham for quite some time, to the point where even the uber-professional captain of the club, Henderson, was admitting just a few weeks ago that "it would be amazing" if his international colleague joined, Liverpool are now having to cast their net further and wider.

It represents a significant change of tact and one that has so far proven to be an unpopular call for many supporters. Liverpool, though, insist there is a plan in place and recent years have shown that they are not afraid to make the tough calls for the long-term good.

It's nearly six years since the club had to effectively cease and desist from a pursuit of Virgil van Dijk after Southampton had threatened to report Liverpool for tapping up the Dutch defender. No replacement was sourced and Klopp and his recruitment team allowed close to three months of the transfer window to pass without bringing in another in Van Dijk's place.

Klopp, in the face of plenty of criticism and questioning, held his nerve and waited for January as fences were mended behind the scenes with Southampton. He would eventually get his man and the rest is history. Rewind the clock back to the summer of 2017, however, and the lack of movement for a Van Dijk alternative was being firmly called into question.

Failing to recruit a like-for-like for the outgoing Philippe Coutinho at the start of 2018 was another that was initially bemoaned. Liverpool's fanbase were still largely buoyed by the signing of Van Dijk but the exit of a player who was arguably their most creative, while eased by the sheer scale of the £142m sum, was a painful one, particularly as no other player was initially brought in.

The Brazilian's eventual would-be replacement, Nabil Fekir, was a subsequent saga that left heads scratched and eyebrows raised. The France international was so close to joining that he had even taken an interview with LFCTV prior to the dramatic 11th-hour shelving of the £50m deal that had been struck with Lyon.

That no 'Fekir replacement' was pursued following the June 2018 breakdown was one that came in for scrutiny. Liverpool would end the following season as European champions and Fekir's footnote in club history is now likely to raise a smile more than anything else among many supporters.

The decision not to give Gini Wijnaldum the new contract he wanted was another difficult one which came after the Netherlands international had proven himself to be the club's most dependable and reliable midfielder with 50 appearances in the 2020/21 campaign.

Wijnaldum, it is thought, was keen to stay on Merseyside before reluctantly accepting it was time to seek pastures new with a free transfer to Paris Saint-Germain. Again, many viewed the move to let him leave as a free agent to be a questionable one. The merits of that can still be debated but there is little doubt he was not missed last season as the Reds went so close to winning a quadruple.

Those behind the scenes have since spoken about there being a blueprint in place within the recruitment team to counteract the failure to sign Bellingham. Senior figures insist there is a "clear plan and a strategy" among the football operations department, even if it has perhaps been accepted that Tuesday's pivot will be viewed as hugely unpopular, for now.

Once more, Liverpool's football operations set-up must prove that they are the Grandmasters of the chess board. At a time when the sporting director role remains up in the air due to Julian Ward's summer departure, it presents them with a daunting task.

It will be fascinating to hear Klopp when he addresses the media on Friday morning ahead of Monday's trip to Leeds. The Reds boss often bristles when there are too many questions peppered at him that aren't about the game he is there to discuss, but he is likely to field several about Bellingham later this week.

Having spoken at length a few times about Bellingham when asked, including last summer's declaration that "the only problem with that player is he is not available", Friday's press conference promises to be appointment viewing.

READ NEXT