While Liverpool’s 2022/23 season has been pretty awful, the last five years have been one hell of a ride under Jurgen Klopp.
The Reds ended their 30-year wait to be crowned champions of England, reached three Champions League finals, winning one, and were even champions of the world for the first time back in 2019. And while they fell short in their efforts to win an unprecedented quadruple last year, their domestic cup double and subsequent Community Shield win in July ensured they have won every honour on offer to them.
Now boasting an ageing squad stuck in transition, Kopites can only hope this year’s step backwards results in two steps forward. Rather than the end of the story, hopefully it is just the start of the next successful chapter.
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But despite reports today suggesting that intermediaries have spoken to Liverpool regarding a potential summer move for Paris Saint-Germain superstar Neymar, there is next to no chance of the Brazilian being part of the Reds’ next chapter.
Liverpool have spent the past 12 months revamping their attack, bringing in Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo, and Fabio Carvalho, while waving off Sadio Mane, Takumi Minamino, and Divock Origi. Meanwhile, new contracts were handed out to Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, and Harvey Elliott, while Roberto Firmino could follow in the months ahead. With the likes of Ben Doak and Kaide Gordon waiting in the wings, the Reds are well-stocked for the foreseeable.
When you consider all four of those new arrivals, who cost the club a combined initial fee of £143m, are central forwards who can also play on the left or inverted left-wingers who can also play down the middle, for Liverpool to suddenly move for Neymar would suggest a lack of forward-planning. Meanwhile, when you consider Jota also plays both roles, the Reds really have no room for another left-sided forward, without selling anyone, regardless of who it is.
Besides, this whole exercise was about building the next generation of Liverpool’s attack. If you’re trying to overhaul an ageing squad, you don’t go and sign an expensive 31-year-old who is past his best. Especially in place of one of your long-term projects in the same position. And while, whether you love him or you hate him, there is no disputing that Neymar is world class, the Brazilian simply doesn’t fit into what the Reds have been looking to achieve.
So, he’s too old and there’s no room for him at Anfield. We’ve not even got onto the price yet. Granted, if Neymar does leave PSG, he won’t be breaking his own world-record £198m transfer, but any funds would be better-placed elsewhere - namely Liverpool’s much-needed midfield revamp this summer, starting with their pursuit of first-choice target Jude Bellingham who will cost a club-record fee.
Then there’s the wages. The Brazilian is reportedly on £782k a week (before tax) at PSG. Mohamed Salah is the Reds’ highest-earner in the club’s history on an heavily-incentivised deal worth up to £400k a week, providing he’s scoring and assisting on a weekly basis to hit all his bonuses. Such a deal came off the back of lengthy negotiations and was already a stretch for Liverpool’s wage-bill, and considerably more than the club’s next highest-earners.
Neymar would have to take a considerable pay-cut for such a move to even start to be feasible. Meanwhile, if the Reds did want him, he’d arguably have to arrive at Salah’s expense. Such an outlay is even more crippling if Klopp’s men miss out on Champions League football.
And even if you look beyond all that, there remains the forward’s patchy injury record. He has played more than 20 Ligue 1 games in a season only once for PSG, and that came last year when he registered 22 league appearances. Meanwhile, he has only broken the 30-game barrier in all competitions just once since moving to Paris in 2017.
Transfermarkt credits him as missing 104 games through injury for PSG over the past five and a half seasons. To put that into context, Joel Matip has missed 95 games over the same period, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita, and Thiago Alcantara missing 89, 88, and 87 matches respectively. Now consider Neymar’s lay-offs have come in an ‘inferior’ league which doesn’t match the pace and physicality of the Premier League.
As good a player as the Brazilian is, it’s a significant outlay for an ageing player who is historically only going to be available for half of the campaign. Even if you have the funds and the space, signing Neymar would be a gamble.
Granted, he is currently enjoying a stellar year in Paris and currently boasts 17 goals and 16 assists from just 28 games. As a result, he will break such appearance-barriers this year. But, when he’s under contract until 2025 and there remain question marks over the futures of fellow superstars Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, you have to wonder why PSG are still willing to cash in on Neymar. Even the most innocent suggestion of cashing in on the Brazilian while they still can is hardly a ringing endorsement for would-be suitors.
That won’t stop Premier League clubs from being interested, of course, with 90min reporting that intermediaries are believed to have spoken with Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Newcastle United, as well as Liverpool. Any of the quartet are far more likely destinations than Anfield. In truth, with so many reasons why they shouldn't even consider entering the race for his signature, the Reds would be stupid to move for the Brazilian.
As a result, don’t get your Neymar Liverpool shirts printed up anytime soon. But despite the fact that the Brazilian is highly unlikely to ever pull on a Reds jersey, Klopp’s men do actually have a lot to thank him for. Without him, this era of success at Anfield might not ever have happened.
It was the forward’s world-record £198m move from Barcelona to PSG in August 2017 that gave the Catalans the funds to sign Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool. Such a fee was more than double Paul Pogba’s previous record £89m move to Manchester United little over a year earlier.
If Neymar doesn’t join PSG, Barcelona don’t replace him with Coutinho. If the forward doesn’t cost £198m, there’s no way the Reds are in a position to demand £142m for their own Brazilian.
With those funds, Liverpool financed moves for the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker, and Fabinho as Klopp built the spine of his mentality monsters. Neymar and Coutinho might have both moved on in 2017/18 in search of Champions League, but it would be the Reds rather than the duo that competed in that year’s final in Kiev.
Fast forward 12 months, with Alisson and Fabinho then signed up, and Liverpool were champions of Europe with future glory just around the corner. Thanks Neymar, they couldn’t have done it without you.
But with the Reds now chasing a new chapter of success, this time, if Liverpool are to successfully overhaul their ageing squad come out the other side of this period of transition, the Brazilian will have nothing to do with it despite these speculated transfer talks.
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