Gigantic Richard Hughes transfer fumble will cost Liverpool £86m to fix | OneFootball

Liverpool and Mohamed Salah are parting ways at the end of the season.

The Egyptian King announced earlier this week that he would be leaving the club - despite his contract running until 2027. Sporting director Richard Hughes will therefore allow Liverpool’s highest-paid player to walk out the door for nothing.

That was exactly the kind of scenario the club feared - prompting a mammoth two-year contract extension towards the back end of last season.

With Salah leading the club to the Premier League title - and sweeping the board for individual honours - the decision was made to tie him down.

If Salah was firing on all cylinders this deal would have made some kind of sense. But the fact of the matter is whether due to a lack of form - or misuse from Arne Slot - Salah isn’t the player he was.

The writing has been on the wall for his Liverpool career for quite some time. Insiders indicate that the row with Arne Slot in December at Elland Road as the point of no return.

Liverpool stuck with Salah in January

But the Premier League champions declined to offload Salah in January - when Saudi clubs were thinking it would take £100m to sign him.

So Liverpool go into the market with a profound need for a starting right winger - and they won’t have any Salah-cash to fund a deal.

All of which makes the decision to stay out of the race for Rayan in January all the more baffling. The Brazilian, 19, was heavily linked with Liverpool after emerging with Vasco da Gama in 2023.

A physically-imposing, left-footed attacker Rayan has an air of Adriano about him - and has been already called up for the Brazil senior team.

Bournemouth signed Rayan for just £26m

One of the most promising South American talents of his generation Rayan moved from Vasco to Bournemouth in the winter for a fee of around £26m before bonuses.

He has taken to life in the Premier League with relish - scoring twice and adding an assist in his first three games. Rayan - and Bournemouth as a whole - have been a little off the boil since then but it hasn’t quelled transfer speculation.

The forward is reported to have a clause worth €100m (£86m) in his Cherries’ contract and looks set to move on long before his contract expiry of 2031.

And just a couple of months on from his arrival in England Liverpool have now been linked once again - alongside interest from most of Europe's elite.

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How does this make sense?

Can someone explain how this makes sense?

Richard Hughes - former technical director at Bournemouth - will surely have known about Rayan. Liverpool and FSG surely knew that the relationship with Salah was untenable and therefore a new winger would be needed.

Where is the logic in staying out of the chase for Rayan only to be linked with a deal for three times the price two months later?

It was reported at the time that Rayan preferred Bournemouth as there was an accessible route to the first team. But that would also have been true at Liverpool given their Salah problems.

There is no doubt that Rayan is going to be big. He has all the ingredients necessary to thrive in the top flight and European football in general.

It’s just a shame that Liverpool didn’t foresee this coming and prepare accordingly.

He could have shared duties with Salah until the end of the season, bedding in without much pressure, and take crucial steps when next season kicks off. This looks like a transfer error that will cost Liverpool a lot of money to fix.