Liverpool transfer cock-up can be fixed for just £25m; contract talk is red herring

As a leading ITK social media account tweeted the claim that Liverpool have made a £25m bid for Marc Guehi ahead of the January window, the instant reaction (these are genuinely the first three comments) was telling:

£25m… that’s huge for 6 months considering we bid £35m in the summer. Any idea of the deal structure?

if they offered 25+5 for 6 months early its a major miscalculation. They should be getting a DEAL for them backing out at the last minute in August.

Why would Liverpool want to bid for Marc Guehi in January when they can easily get him for free in the summer or do they feel they cannot compete when the likes of Manchester United are lurking around?

First, drink in that sense of entitlement, with one Liverpool fan seemingly believing that it is Palace who should genuflect and offer Liverpool a deal (sorry, DEAL) on the player they refused to sell on deadline day because, well, Liverpool waited until deadline day to make a serious move after spending most of the summer pursuing too many attackers to field in one functioning team.

READ: Top 10 mistakes, missteps and errors in Liverpool’s catastrof*ck title defence

Then there’s the ‘easily get him for free’ comment, disregarding the idea that Real Madrid, PSG or literally any other club in world football can also ‘easily get him for free’. It’s not like there’s any recent evidence of Real wielding a greater pull than 12th-placed Liverpool.

But the overriding sentiment is ‘£25m? For a player soon to be available for free?’. And that’s frankly bollocks. It’s not a fee for six months, it’s a fee for one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League for six years and possibly beyond.

This modern-day obsession with contracts and deal structures has come at the price of sensible transfer discourse. Liverpool desperately need at least one centre-half (probably two in the medium term) and £25m is a bargain price for one of the very best available. Talk of deal structures should be for football directors and accountants, not football fans who should be rather more invested in whether Liverpool can rescue their season.

And they absolutely can rescue their season regardless of Arsenal disappearing over the horizon in the Premier League; this is a Liverpool side probably better suited to the rarefied air of the Champions League than this tactical throwback of a domestic season.

A run to the semi-finals of the Champions League and qualification for next year’s competition is probably just about enough to feed the notion that this was not a one-season Jurgen Klopp tribute act of a reign from Arne Slot.

And while those targets are a possibility – and the congested Premier League table certainly suggests that Liverpool could easily finish in the top four – massively improving their team for a relatively low cost should be an absolute no-brainer. And if your first reaction is to describe a £25m fee as ‘huge’ (Liverpool paid more for a teenage centre-half last summer), then you have stopped viewing football as a sport.

Palace do not owe Liverpool any kind of deal and actually, Guehi owes Liverpool even less because they put him right at the bottom of their priority list when the deal was there to be done all summer. It was a misstep from Liverpool and having the chance to correct that misstep in January for less money should be the cause of relief rather than reprobation or a righteous sense of entitlement.

We are not advocating for football fans to be completely deaf, dumb and blind to finances, but when your first reaction on hearing that your club could rectify a massive on-pitch problem for relatively little money is to ask ‘any idea of the deal structure?’ then the shark has been well and truly jumped.