Liverpool confirm decision to sign England star | OneFootball

Liverpool's summer transfer window was exemplary, signing £440m worth of players, despite only really spending £220m net as a result of some incredible negotiations for outgoing moves.

The British transfer record for a single player was broken twice and the overall spend for the window shattered the previous highs outlay for a Premier League club, although of course, it wouldn't be right unless Liverpool found a way to make such an expensive splurge fit within their means.

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Of course, you would now expect next summer to be less intense, now that a lot of the squad needs have been addressed, although one position in particular would have benefitted from a new signing.

The move in question is Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace, whose transfer collapsed at the very last minutes, leaving Liverpool's executives with egg on their face, having completed a medical for him.

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For now, the saga has been put on pause, but plans are already being made for future transfer windows and the Reds have set their stall out regarding whether the England star is still a target.

Plan revealed to secure Guehi agreement

Automatically, most fans assumed that a fresh financial package would be set Guehi's way for the January transfer window, albeit with a lower fee since he'll have just 6 months left on his deal.

But that's now been confirmed not to be the case. Paul Joyce in The Times has published a report which claims that Liverpool 'would only now sign the Crystal Palace centre-back on a free transfer next summer', rather than offer any kind of incentive to allow him to leave mid-season.

For accounting purposes, this makes sense and given how things ended on deadline day, you could potentially consider this stance as a somewhat punishing one for the Eagles after agreeing to decline the £35m that Liverpool were offering for him, which was not a disingenuous bid.

Allowing the player to go on a free and trusting that he will remain loyal and still choose Liverpool 12 months later is a particularly bold strategy and one that Richard Hughes will not have taken lightly.

Other clubs will be able to approach Guehi at that point and Real Madrid are already said to be sniffing around the idea - we're already well aware of how much they love a free transfer.

So there is a lot of risk involved, but once the 2026 summer transfer window opens, Crystal Palace will not be given a say in where his future lies and prior to that point, a pre-agreement can be signed to alleviate some of the anxiety that Liverpool will likely be feeling around his transfer.

The 25-year-old is an extraordinary homegrown defender and missing out on him is going to be a significant blow, but as mentioned, there must be confidence on Merseyside that the plan will work.

In the meantime, Arne Slot has absolute clarity for the season - Virgil Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Joe Gomez and Giovanni Leoni - are the centre-backs he will be able to rely on for the entire campaign.

The initial attempt to sign Guehi this summer points to the slight weakness in the Reds defence, but in a near-perfect summer, it was always likely that something could go wrong eventually. In order to adjust, the Dutchman might need to be slightly more adjustable in sharing minutes across the back-line, but the medical team working behind the scenes managed injury issues quite well last season.