‘Liverpool hoped…’ – Anfield naivety over Marc Guehi transfer laid bare by Paul Joyce report
A weekend report by Paul Joyce has laid bare just how naive Liverpool had been with their transfer stance on Marc Guehi.
Four-and-a-half months on from having a £35m deadline-day move for the Crystal Palace captain cancelled at the 11th hour, the Reds have now seen the England international agree a £20m deal to join Manchester City in recent days.
Sky Sports reporter Kaveh Solhekol claimed that the Merseyside club would’ve already signed the 25-year-old if they ‘really, really wanted him’ and that Selhurst Park officials even had to prompt them about the prospective transfer at the Community Shield last August.
Liverpool had hoped Guehi would wait for them until the summer
On Sunday evening, Joyce reported that Liverpool had been banking on Guehi waiting until the summer of this year to join them because of the efforts they’d made to sign him five months ago.
He wrote for The Times: ‘It is clear Liverpool hoped Guéhi would recognise the efforts they had made to sign him before Palace co-owner and chairman Steve Parish pulled the plug on a deal on deadline day and, in turn, waited for them until the summer.
‘The flipside of that is that Liverpool are not as attractive a proposition now as they were then for any player. City’s reputed wage offer of £300,000 a week, in addition to paying an initial £20m fee, was a deal Liverpool were unwilling to match financially. They had no intention of bidding this month.’
How could Liverpool be so naive over Guehi?
If indeed Anfield chiefs were relying on good faith from Guehi to hold out until the end of this season to join them because of how close they were to completing a deal last summer (he was undergoing his medical when the transfer was pulled by Palace), that’s an incredibly naive stance on their part.
It was always plausible that, for as long as Liverpool dallied, a rival suitor could sweep in and get a move done, and that’s exactly what has transpired because of Man City’s greater proactivity.
As Joyce alluded to, Arne Slot’s side were firm favourites to retain their Premier League title at the time of their doomed pursuit of the 25-year-old at the end of last summer, whereas now they’re a frighteningly inconsistent outfit who face the real prospect of missing out on the Champions League.
Had Liverpool attempted to sign Guehi this month but simply been outbid by City, or if the player had both options on the table and chose the Etihad Stadium, it would still have been galling for Reds fans but at least they’d have seen their club make a proper effort to get him this time around.
Instead, the gamble on waiting until this summer has backfired horribly, and Richard Hughes now has just two weeks to bring in an alternative centre-back if Slot isn’t to be left continuing to rely on just three senior options in that vital part of the squad.
You can watch Slot’s full post-Burnley press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
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