With Euro 2024 and Copa America over, we’re full steam ahead for the new season (or maybe not if you’re Liverpool).
The Reds are busy preparing for the 2024/25 season, which will of course be Arne Slot’s first in charge. The new manager is gradually getting to know his new team, which has been joined by Andy Robertson, Dominik Szoboszlai and Vitezslav Jaros, the latest to join the AXA Training Centre.
The rest of the internationals will move on in due course, with a pre-season tour of the US on the horizon, where Slot will take charge of the Reds for the first time against Real Betis in just over a week.
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Liverpool are certainly going through a busy time, although things are much quieter on the transfer front. The club has not yet entered the transfer market and it seems it will be a while before any new signings are announced.
Three potential targets have already been ruled out: according to ECHO, there is no interest in Marc Guehi, Mohamed Simakan or Karim Adeyemi. Furthermore, it seems that the search for Leny Yoro could be practically over, as it has been accepted that the youngster from Lille will leave for Real Madrid.
It is suggested that any potential deal could come at a later stage, once Slot has had a chance to assess his squad as a whole. That idea follows sporting director Richard Hughes’ theory that activity in the Premier League will pick up next month.
That won’t go down well with the masses on social media who have been clamouring for new signings since the moment the window opened, and will no doubt further infuriate the #FSGOut crowd. It is a sensible approach, though, given the huge turnaround the club has undergone with Jurgen Klopp’s departure.
It is only fair that Slot is given the chance to assess his options properly, and he has not been helped by the fact that 14 of his players are away with their national teams this summer. It will still be a while before he is up against the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk or Alexis Mac Allister.
But as understandable as this wait-and-see attitude may seem, it carries with it an important caveat from the recent past, and one that FSG should already be fully aware of.
Just two years ago, with Darwin Nunez, Calvin Ramsay and Fabio Carvalho already in the squad at the start of July, the Reds decided to sit back, satisfied with the job they had done. However, it soon became clear that new sporting director Julian Ward had a much bigger job ahead of him as the Reds’ midfield was faltering at the start of the season.
On that occasion, Liverpool had to wait a long time to get their way. In the end, the only signing they could make in midfield was Arthur Melo, whose loan move will surely go down in history as the worst signing of the Klopp era, having played just 13 minutes for the first team.
Ward, who has now returned to work for FSG, will not want a repeat of that. Decisions need to be made as soon as possible to avoid any more wild purchases. There are already some obvious areas that need attention. It is no coincidence that two of the supposedly discarded targets were centre-backs, while Mohamed Salah’s future means there could soon be a glaring gap to fill in attack.
Of course, Slot needs time to make his own decisions about his team, but we must not wait too long and run the risk of making the same mistake twice.
