In a bygone era, the process of selling players was something of a Liverpool afterthought.
In 2009, for example, when Alvaro Arbeloa moved to Real Madrid, the Reds allowed their first-choice right-back to trade Anfield for the Bernabeu for a paltry £3.5m after he made 29 Premier League appearances for a Rafa Benitez team that were beaten just twice all season.
Even for 13 years ago, that fee was surely well below the versatile defender's true value, particularly in the same summer when £18m was paid to Portsmouth for Glen Johnson.
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Further back, Michael Owen was one of the very best strikers in European football when he was allowed to depart, to Real Madrid no less, for a cut-price fee of just £8m. A contract impasse had seen the England international's market value drop considerably, but the sum received was merely an insult to the injury for a club about to lose its star striker.
In 2010, Javier Mascherano was one of the best defensive midfielders around when Liverpool allowed him to join Barcelona for £18m, a fee below the Argentina international's worth.
In modern times, however, things are much different. Since the summer of 2016, the club's negotiators have managed to extract sizable sums for players deemed either surplus to requirements or wantaway stars who seek pastures new.
Players like Mamadou Sakho (£26m), Christian Benteke (£27m) and Raheem Sterling (£49m) have all brought in eye-catching figures, while those who were unable to make the grade long-term - Marko Grujic (£10m), Taiwo Awoniyi (£6.5m) and Rafa Camacho (£7m), to name just three - have still ensured a healthy profit has been made.
There is no finer example of such prudence in the market, though, than the £142m deal for Philippe Coutinho to join Barcelona in January 2018. The Reds were reluctant to lose the Brazil international at the time, but sporting director Michael Edwards struck the hardest of bargains.
The deal not only became the third highest transfer fee ever paid, Edwards' extra negotiations made sure Barcelona were kept away from returning to Anfield for anyone else for the following two years.
Under the terms of Coutinho's departure, Barcelona would be forced to pay an additional €100m (£89m) premium for any other Liverpool player before 2020. Barcelona were unhappy with the terms set by the former sporting director but the deal effectively ended their interest in other players for the next few windows.
The exit of the vaunted Edwards is not about to see Liverpool change this particular way of working, though. His replacement Julian Ward is very much keeping up with recent traditions.
The £17m deal that has allowed Neco Williams to join Nottingham Forest is proof enough of that. The summer arrival of Calvin Ramsay as backup to Trent Alexander-Arnold left the Wales international in no-man's land with regards to his own future and the decision to move to the newly-promoted Forest is a deal that suits all parties.
But despite being oversubscribed with right-backs, Liverpool have not let Williams leave for a pittance. They have banked what they feel is an acceptable sum.
It can, at times, look as though Liverpool have something of the Midas touch when it comes to negotiating, particularly when they fetch fees like £19m for Dominic Solanke, £16m for Jordon Ibe or £12m for Harry Wilson, but the reality is much more straightforward.
Liverpool simply keep up to date with very latest market trends and value their players in line with the most recent trades. It's why deals like the £12m that took Nathan Collins from Stoke City to Burnley last year helped define a price tag for Nat Phillips at the time.
In 2019, Liverpool were asking for as much as £15m for Awoniyi after a successful season on loan in Belgium. It seemed a shockingly high valuation at the time, on the face of it, but a dive into the reasons why explained it neatly. Earlier that summer, Aston Villa had struck a club-record deal to sign Club Brugge's Brazilian striker Wesley for a fee of around £22m. That same window, Brighton concluded a transfer for Genk winger Leandro Trossard for a fee of £15m.
Wesley struck 17 goals in all competitions for the Belgians, with 10 of them coming in the domestic league, while Trossard bagged 11 for his side. In comparison, Awoniyi, who played for Gent and Mouscron across the 2018/19 term, netted seven times in 25 appearances in total.
Given the trio of players' respective fortunes in the Belgian top flight that campaign, Liverpool felt the £15m fee was justified even if they were eventually made to offload him for £6.5m six years after he joined for £300,000 from the Imperial Soccer Academy in Nigeria.
Liverpool have since earned an extra £1.7m as part of the sell-on clause they negotiated for a player who never came close to breaking into the first-team picture under Klopp. Those sorts of clauses are also an additional source of revenue further down the line.
It's also why Liverpool were able to bank £20m for Rhian Brewster from Sheffield United, despite the youngster making just four appearances for Klopp's side. A run of 11 goals in 22 games for Swansea on loan in the Championship allowed the Reds' negotiators to compare favourably to that season's top scorer, Ollie Watkins, who joined Aston Villa that same window for an initial £28m from Brentford.
It's that same model that has been applied to Williams to come up with the sum they are set to bring in from Forest as a result of a move that sees the young defender once more link up with Steve Cooper, who he knows from his days at the Liverpool Academy.
With Tottenham Hotspur on the cusp of signing Djed Spence from Middlesbrough for £15m, Liverpool feel their fee is an adequate one for a player who has made over 30 appearances for a Reds team many talk up as the best in decades at Anfield. A successful loan spell at Championship winners Fulham in the second half of last term has also helped define the true value of the 21-year-old Williams.
Gone are the days when Liverpool lose their fringe players for next to nothing. It's all part of the thriving recruitment model that has held them steady over the last five years.
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*A version of this article was first published on July 9th.
