Liverpool had a very efficient and productive summer transfer window, with most of the major business being conducted in the earlier portion. Obviously, the £49 million sale of Raheem Sterling was the headliner transaction, and now we’ll see what kind of job LFC did a investing that money. It can’t be worse than what happened following the Luis Suarez sale.
The cash infusion from selling the superstar striker to Barcelona led to lots of new buys, but the team fell from second place to the Europa League.
That cannot happen again in the wake of the Sterling sale to Manchester City. Last summer’s window was chaotic and uneven. It’s hard to understand what direction they were going with in 2014. By contrast, this summer was more precise and effective as Liverpool got upgrades at key positions and genuinely filled team needs.
They also parted ways with Fabio Borini, Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert and many others.
Four of last summer’s nine signings are not even with the team anymore. In some cases that’s a good thing, as ridding your side of dead weight can sometimes be just as important as adding new key players.
Can they use these expeditious upgrades to work themselves into the top four and save Brendan Rodgers job? He’ll probably be sacked if Liverpool fails to qualify for Champions League.
The play of James Milner, Roberto Firmino, Nathaniel Clyne and Christian Benteke, among others, will have a lot to stay about that. Liverpool also locked up their best defender Martin Skrtel this summer.
That’s a transfer window “own goal” of sorts as he signed a contract extension.
Liverpool transfer window grades:
ESPN FC B+
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 the Zone.