Fabrizio Romano confirms another GENIUS Richard Hughes move | OneFootball

Forget the summer of 66, it's the summer of Richard Hughes at Liverpool.

The club's new sporting director received a lot of backlash last summer when he decided not to significantly strengthen the Reds' options and failed to sign Martin Zubimendi.

But those critics are now fading into oblivion. Hughes has already secured a club record transfer for Florian Wirtz. He's signed Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong, and he's successfully negotiated a huge fee to sell Jarell Quansah to Bayer Leverkusen.

The latter is a move that will be disappointing to some supporters. Quansah had a lot of potential and he looked like the next big thing coming out of the club's academy.

But he's endured a difficult season under Arne Slot and now he'll have to make the grade in Germany.

Selling him was definitely the right decision. Quansah needs regular game time to rediscover his confidence and to get his career on track again.

At Leverkusen he'll be able to do that, having the task of replacing Jonathan Tah, who joins Bayern Munich on a free transfer in July.

But Quansah's Liverpool chapter may not be entirely over. Hughes really pulled off a genius deal here for Liverpool, because he's ensured that if Quansah rediscovers his old form and becomes a success in Germany, the Reds will be able to bring him back to Anfield.

Fabrizio Romano confirmed that Liverpool inserted a buy-back-clause in the agreement with Leverkusen which could be worth up to £35m with add-ons and guarantees the Reds at least £30m.

That's very good fee for Quansah but it's an even better scenario for Liverpool. Having a buy-back-clause means Liverpool haven't entirely lost out on Quansah.

There is a chance that they could sign him again. And while Romano has not reported on what the buy-back-clause will be, according to Bild it's expected to be €60m, which is just £51.2m.

So, assuming Quansah does not fulfil the additional requirements for the £5m in add-ons, Liverpool would still only have to pay over just over £21m to sign him again over the £30m they received for him from Leverkusen.

That's an absolutely genius piece of business from Hughes.

It's honestly akin to some of Michael Edwards' very best sales at the club. And with the likes of Darwin Nunez, Federico Chiesa, Harvey Elliott and more to offload, it bodes really well for Liverpool.

So far this summer, Hughes has been able to fleece €10m from Real Madrid just so they could sign Trent Alexander-Arnold early and now he's absolutely delivered a masterstroke with Leverkusen over the sale of Quansah.