Jurgen Klopp is fearful of a lengthy injury lay-off for Joel Matip as Liverpool await the results of a scan for the defender.
Matip pulled up during the second half of Sunday’s eventful 4-3 win over Fulham and was replaced by Ibrahima Konate before two late goals sealed a victory over Marco Silva’s men.
Klopp confirmed after the game that Matip had injured his knee and while the Reds boss revealed in his Tuesday press conference that the centre-back is still awaiting a further prognosis, he admits he is concerned it will be a long time out of the team for a player who is out of contract at the end of the season.
Liverpool get last laugh over Chelsea after new £128m transfer figure emerges
The summer transfer window of 2023 was defined by two things; the huge amount of money being spent on acquiring talent by both the Saudi Arabian Pro League and Chelsea.
On one hand there was huge sums of money on offer by SPL sides, the biggest four being backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the owners of Newcastle United. Three Liverpool players opted to leave the Premier League for what was being offered in Saudi, with Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino all departing.
For Firmino it was a decision made at the end of his Reds contract, but for Henderson and Fabinho it saw Liverpool recoup £52m in fees from their sales to Al-Ettifaq and Al-Ittihad, respectively. That was just £8m shy of the cost of outlay for both, and after a combined 17 years of service to the club.
On the other hand there was Chelsea. The aggressive spend to hoover up promising talent from across the globe began in the January window following the takeover of the club by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in May 2022. Since their arrival, more than £1bn has been spent in terms of transfer fees across three windows, with the club breaking the British transfer record twice during that period, first with the £105m signing of Enzo Fernandez from Benfica in January, then with the £115m capture of Moises Caicedo from Brighton & Hove Albion during the summer.
Liverpool had been linked with Fernandez but a deal was never really expected to materialise. But in the case of Caicedo, the Reds had offered £111m during the summer, prompting Chelsea to end their game of cat and mouse with Brighton and pony up the big bucks to make the deal happen. And happen it did, with Caicedo rejecting Liverpool’s advances and choosing Stamford Bridge instead.
Just days later another Liverpool target who the club had looked close to sealing, Romeo Lavia, opted to do exactly the same, signing for Chelsea in a deal worth up to £58m from Southampton. It was a bruising few days for the club, coming on the back of a bitterly disappointing season where they finished fifth and missed out on the lucrative Champions League for the first time since 2016.
A rebuild and reset, particularly in midfield, was a vital theme for Jurgen Klopp’s men heading into the summer. While the argument never goes away with regards to the transfer spend under Fenway Sports Group at Liverpool compared to the club’s rivals, the defined recruitment strategy has led to more wins than losses in the transfer market, particularly over the last six or seven years. But the summer saw FSG give the green light for a mammoth Caicedo bid, while figures in excess of £50m were suggested for Lavia. Both players, while enjoying fine individual seasons in 2022/23, had little in the way of top level experience, and making such big plays required an element of risk.
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