Liverpool’s £450m spending spree, examined: This has been an unhappy, underwhelming experiment | OneFootball

The club who began 2025 with an eight-point advantage at the Premier League summit could end it with a greater deficit to the leaders. A year of triumph and tragedy for Liverpool has also featured unprecedented spending. Glance at the league table and their transfer business and it suggests they have spent £450m to get worse. They will enter 2026 exactly half-way through their Premier League campaign. If the half-term report for the team reads ‘could do better’, that applies to most of their signings.

Giovanni Leoni, of course, cannot do better in the second half of the season, as he is ruled out for the remainder of it. The Italian is blameless for that and, to varying degrees, others can plead mitigating circumstances for their slight returns. But so far Jeremie Frimpong has only made two league starts. Alexander Isak only has two Premier League goals (and none in the Champions League). Florian Wirtz only has one league goal and assist. In each case, the same statistics in the next five months would render their debut campaign at Anfield a failure.

open image in gallery

Florian Wirtz celebrates his first Liverpool goal with Hugo Ekitike, the only one of Liverpool's new recruits that can be classed as a success over the first half of the season (AP)

In Wirtz’s case, however, Liverpool are entitled to feel that he has not been flattered by the figures, that the German has performed better than the unimpressive numbers suggest. Go on the most basic of numbers and Milos Kerkez, with 15 league starts so far, would count as a positive, though the alternative argument is that some of those should have gone to the underused Andy Robertson. Nevertheless, there is the sense that, like Wirtz, Kerkez is settling in after an awkward start. But only Hugo Ekitike, with eight Premier League goals, ranks as an unqualified success so far.

As a group, Slot expects them to deliver more in the second half of the season. “Yeah, yeah, for sure,” he said. He also believes it is incumbent on him to get more from them. That could be construed as an admission he has struggled to conjure their finest form so far.

“That’s not only for the new players,” he added. “If you bring in a lot of new players and a lot of players leave, usually at least if I do my job well, they will play better football the longer they are here and when they have more training time and playing time. History has shown many times the longer players play together the bigger chance you have of winning something. You saw this last season because that team was here the year before all the same with Jurgen [Klopp].”

If Slot appears to be stripping himself of some of the credit for winning the Premier League, it is also an argument not to spend £450m, not to have a radical revamp. The Dutchman feels some of it was enforced. “If you add players to what you have, there is a serious chance of improving,” he said. “If you replace, like we have done, then it takes time. And usually it gets better after a certain period of time.”

open image in gallery

Arne Slot will be judged alongside his new signings after Liverpool’s radical revamp (REUTERS)

That must be the hope. Liverpool’s flaws in the full-back positions have not looked like excellent recruitment so far. But Slot countered: “Trent [Alexander-Arnold] left. That was not ideal for me as Trent was so important.” His successor has had two injuries but Frimpong has shown a dynamism in attack to set up goals against Tottenham and Wolves in the last two games. “When we looked in the market, Jeremie was one of the first we noticed,” Slot said. “He has that pace similar to Conor [Bradley], Milos and Robbo.”

The damning part for Frimpong is that there are times when midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai has been preferred to him; it remains to be seen if Slot really trusts his compatriot to play right-back. But speed has been a theme in Liverpool’s purchasing: in both full-backs and strikers.

open image in gallery

Liverpool will expect from from Jeremie Frimpong if he can remain fit (Getty Images)

Isak, though, has been off the pace, rarely looking fully fit. As the £125m buy, the British record signing, he is the face of the spending spree. In his absence, Slot argued some of Liverpool’s money has not been seen on the pitch, that, rather than paying historically huge amounts, they have a rather smaller net spend with the players currently available.

“Unfortunately, we won’t see Giovanni Leoni this season and Alex will take a long time before we see him again,” he outlined. “You can do the numbers of how much money that is, combined with how much we have sold. That is maybe an interesting story to make.”

The tales of the £450m men is intriguing enough. So far, despite Ekitike’s excellence, despite the glimpses of Wirtz’s talent, it amounts to an unhappy experiment with underwhelming results. Perhaps, as a group, they are being dragged down by Isak, who will be stuck on two league goals until at least March. But if there is more to come from each, Slot expects to see better in the second half of the season. The appraisals will be uncomplimentary if they do not improve. And he, like they, will be judged on what they deliver.