At one-point in the 2021-22 season, Liverpool FC was well-positioned to capture an unprecedented quadruple. To explain this to my non-soccer audience, an elite English football team play in four competitions each season, and no team has ever won all four. This Liverpool team has the distinct honor of coming closest to achieving that feat after winning the Carabao and FA Cup but losing the Premier League by a point and the Champions League Final 1-0. Yes, it was an agonizing way to end the season. After five short weeks, the club has resumed training as they prepare for another grueling season. In this article we will discuss the four biggest stories from the club’s off-season and analyze their impact on the club.
1. The departures- after every season in professional sports, there is usually a turnover in personnel. The team allowed a few young players to leave on expiring contracts to become free agents. The list includes Sheyi Ojo, Ben Woodburn, and Loris Karius. The team also Marco Grujic to FC Porto after loan stints with the Portuguese club. Liverpool fans will not be losing sleep because of losing the four mentioned, and Karius is still blamed for making goalkeeping errors that led to the loss against Real Madrid in the 2018 Champions League Final. However, there are two key departures from the club. Divock Origi has left to join AC Milan on a free transfer, and the Japanese attacking midfielder Takumi Minamino sold to Monaco. Liverpool fans will remember Origi’s heroics in scoring big goals for the club in the Champions League in 2019 and coming off the bench as a super-sub to grab wins at the death. Origi scored 41 goals and provided 18 assists during his tenure at the club. Minamino will be missed because last season, he scored ten goals, and they were crucial in club capturing the two titles this season.
2. Mane heads to Bayern- a significant loss to the club and fanbase is to see Sadio Mane head to Bayern Munich to satisfy his desire for a substantial increase in his salary. Mane has been a consistently productive player in Jurgen Klopp’s setup. Klopp has played Mane in the big matches because the Senegalese tends to shine brightest in the spotlight. According to trasfermarkt.com, Mane has scored 120 goals for the club and provided 48 assists. It will be interesting to see if Mane can produce the good in Germany because it will have Klopp second-guessing his lineup with the number 10 missing.
3. Nunez signs from Benfica- Mane’s departure from LFC was expected after being leaked to the media months before the transfer window. It meant that the team needed to secure a replacement, and they did by signing Darwin Nunez. Liverpool signed the forward on a club-record deal fee Benfica of 78 million dollars plus 30 million dollars in add-ons. It is a shrewd signing because Nunez is only 22 years old and showcased his talent this past season by scoring 34 goals including six in the Champions League and two against Liverpool. It will be interesting to see how quickly Nunez can settle since he is a more natural number 9 central striker when compared to Sadio Mane.
4. Salah extends his contract-the news that hung over this team last season was whether they were going to get an agreement for an extension with Mohammed Salah. On July 1, the club announced that the Egyptian forward had agreed on three-year extension and earnings of $418,000 per week. Liverpool could not afford Salah to leave the club, and they essentially chose to pay him above Mane. Salah has been a revelation having returned to the Premier League after leaving Roma in 2017. Salah is one of the best forwards in world football and the history of the club having scored 156 goals and provided 63 assists in 254 appearances. It makes Salah ninth on the all-time LFC scoring chart and only two goals behind Michael Owen. Salah started last season in blistering form but the goals dried up towards the end. The negotiation for his upcoming contract may have weighed heavy on his mind and losses by Egypt at the international. However, Salah still scored 23 goals in the Premier League to win the golden shoe. I expect Salah to deliver this season because he will be more settled, and even get more rest because Egypt did not qualify for the World Cup in Qatar.