If Michael Edwards earned his vaunted reputation for the success of Liverpool’s incomings during his time at Anfield, that is only half of the real story.
During his time with the Reds, specifically the six years he spent as the club’s first-ever sporting director between 2016 and 2022, Edwards established himself as one of the shrewdest operators around as he helped build Jurgen Klopp the sort of squad that saw the team win every top-level trophy available between 2019 and 2022.
While winning the Premier League, Champions League, Club World Cup, League Cup and FA Cup – as well as the UEFA Super Cup – the Reds also finished runners-up with points hauls of 97 and 92 and were bested by Real Madrid twice in the European Cup finals of 2018 and 2022.
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That sequence is why Klopp’s side were widely viewed as one of the finest on the continent during the last few years and Edwards’s work behind the scenes was crucial to helping. But for all the headlines that players like Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and Andy Robertson – to name just four – garnered during Edwards’s stint, it was Liverpool’s ability to raise funds through sales which often earned the former Portsmouth analyst louder praise in more private settings.
Such is Edwards‘s standing in the industry, in fact, that there’s a story of a meeting with a Premier League counterpart who broke the ice by bowing at his feet in exaggerated appreciation for one particular deal that had seen Liverpool bank a healthy fee for a player who was surplus to requirements.
Deals like Christian Benteke (£28m), Jordon Ibe (£15m) and Brad Smith (£6m) all appeared as though Liverpool had perhaps earned more than the true value of the wantaway player but the £20m pocketed from Bournemouth for Dominic Solanke was an agreement that has benefitted all parties hugely in the years since.
Players like Harry Wilson (£12m), Marko Grujic (£10.5m) and more recently Neco Williams (£17m) and Takumi Minamino (£15m) might seem like successes for Liverpool as a selling club but there is a method behind them snaring such sizable sums for those whose futures clearly lie elsewhere.
For example, the club were able to fetch £23m for Rhian Brewster in the summer of 2020, when he joined Sheffield United, largely due to the market trends of the time. The striker had scored 11 goals in 22 appearances during a half-season loan spell at Swansea City in the Championship and the £28m Aston Villa paid for Ollie Watkins – the division’s 26-goal top scorer that season – in the subsequent transfer window largely informed the fee the Reds were able to command at the time.
The £17m for Williams, when he joined Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2022, was based around the fact he was a fully-fledged Wales international with 33 appearances in a squad that is widely considered to be one of the strongest in decades at Anfield. The same summer also saw right-backs Aaron Hickey and Djed Spence move to Brentford and Tottenham Hotspur for £17m and £20m, respectively. In context, the figures are often fair value for what is happening elsewhere at the time.
Occasionally, the Reds’ demands have sometimes led to interest cooling, with Nat Phillips seeing clubs move away in recent years after a fee was slapped on the defender months after his considerable efforts helped earn Klopp’s side Champions League football. Burnley’s £12m capture of Nathan Collins from Stoke City emboldened the Reds to ask for £15m and upwards for Phillips, but the centre-back remains on the books four years and three loans later.
The same could be said of Nottingham Forest striker Taiwo Awoniyi, who Liverpool wanted £15m for in the summer of 2019 after a productive spell in Belgium on loan with Gent and Mouscron. Nigeria international Awoniyi scored 14 times in 38 appearances in 2018/19 and in a summer that saw Wesley, the Belgian league’s top scorer of that campaign, move to Aston Villa for £22m from Club Brugge, Liverpool felt the fee set for their striker was fair. He was eventually offloaded to Union Berlin for £6.5m, however.
The £20m figure Liverpool have placed on Sepp van den Berg might initially appear prohibitive given the Dutch defender has made just four appearances since he signed as a teenager from PEC Zwolle in 2019 but the 22-year-old enjoyed a productive spell with Mainz in the Bundesliga, where he played 33 times.
Van den Berg is reportedly attracting interest from the Premier League and with Edwards back in the saddle at Anfield, as FSG’s ‘CEO of football’, the Reds are likely to drive a hard bargain once more. The same will apply to goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher, who has revealed this week that he may consider his own future this summer after an outstanding campaign.
“Playing against Man City at home (the 1-1 draw at Anfield in March) was another big one for me with the rivalry between us,” Kelleher told The Athletic. “You’re not going to play in a more high-profile game than that in world football and I thought I did really well. You think, ‘Yeah, I’m capable of doing this every week at a high level’. I got the taste for it and I want to do it all the time. My main ambition is to be a No 1.
“It would be great if that happened at Liverpool, but I’m not silly. I know that Ali (Alisson Becker) has been the best goalkeeper in the world for years.
“I’ve had such an amazing time at Liverpool. It’s been a crazy journey for me and one that I’ve absolutely loved. I love the club, I love the fans and I have a great relationship with the players and the staff. Whether it’s here at Liverpool or somewhere else, I do feel the next step for me is to be a No.1.”
It’s unclear exactly how much Liverpool will demand for Kelleher should he agitate to leave, but the club dismissed an offer from Forest in January with senior figures later branding the proposal as derisory and given the Irishman’s campaign – where he played 26 times across all competitions that included a Carabao Cup final triumph – Edwards and incoming sporting director Richard Hughes are well placed to ask for top dollar for their No.2 goalkeeper.
So while sporting directors, like Edwards and now Hughes, will earn their stripes in the eyes of fans through the success of the incomings, it will be how adept they are at raising as much as possible for the outgoings that will enable Arne Slot to truly reshape his Liverpool.