Liverpool record transfer window ‘unthinkable’ and Manchester United have already shown it can fail

Liverpool breaking the British transfer record twice to sign an elite striker and creator was ‘unthinkable’ but it means they should be judged by the Quadruple.

Things have started well with the Reds top of the Premier League table heading into the international break.

But the bare minimum now is a legitimate push at winning the sodding lot. If not, Arne Slot could be on his way out…

Virgil van Dijk did warn us. Stood on the Anfield pitch with a title winner’s medal around his neck, the Liverpool captain repeated a line that felt incongruous, like it came directly from the boardroom during contract negotiations:

“I’ve said it many times already, it’s looking like it’s going to be a massive summer in terms of players coming in.”

New full-backs were needed either side, as well as a centre-half and striker to aid a post-Alexander-Arnold change in style and help Arne Slot further implant his identity on the squad.

That was just the start, and it would not come cheap.

But few expected the club to embark on the single biggest course of sustained investment in the sport’s entire history. The elementary capture of Florian Wirtz and protracted pursuit of Alexander Isak could not have been much different but those moves and everything in between turned this into a historic transfer window with magnitudinal implications.

Only once before has the same team broken the Premier League transfer record twice in one summer. And like Liverpool in the current day, Man Utd were building from a position of immense strength after keeping their powder almost entirely dry at the turn of the millennium.

“I feel we need a challenge,” said Sir Alex Ferguson in 2001, as much a reflection of his thoughts on the contenders for the Premier League title Man Utd had won three seasons in a row as it was a declaration of his desire to freshen up his squad.

With his planned retirement still looming the following year, and only Fabien Barthez signed the previous season, Ferguson sanctioned the sort of trophy-guaranteeing moves he would eventually bow out with more than a decade later.

For Robin van Persie, read Ruud van Nistelrooy. And in conjunction with Juan Sebastian Veron, known universally as the Shinji Kagawa of his time, a team which could not possibly fail had been created. An already winning formula was enhanced.

Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, described the pair as players “who will immediately make a difference” and represent “a great return on your investment”. Ferguson said the numbers involved were “unthinkable” but the going rate for “marvellous, world class” talent. A combined £47.1m sounds modest in 2025 but it was the equivalent of about one-third of Man Utd’s turnover at the time.

‘Before United bought these two players, they were already favourites to win the Premiership,’ Mark Lawrenson told BBC Sport long before becoming a 65-year-old white male. ‘Now, for me, it is already a case of who is going to come second.’

He might have been pleased to learn it would be Liverpool; he would have been stunned to realise Man Utd would finish as low as third for the first time in Premier League history, with Arsenal breaking their monopoly.

It is a role the Gunners will be keen to reprise this season: spoilers of a potential dynasty. But for all the pressure Mikel Arteta faces ahead of a campaign in which success or failure will be defined in the eyes of many by the destination of the title, Liverpool have raised the stakes to previously unfathomable levels – and even landed the first in-game strike.

Signing Isak and gaslighting Newcastle into letting them have Hugo Ekitike makes this a remarkable high-wire act that the Premier League title alone would not justify. It must be accompanied with at least one other trophy and deep runs in any competition they do not win.

It makes the Quadruple, English football’s impossible holy grail, a genuine objective against which a team should be judged for the first time. Ferguson said there was “no chance” it could ever be done, Pep Guardiola called it “impossible” and no coach before or since has come as close as either, but adding Isak means Slot must.

The struggles Man Utd endured after their record-breaking summer are a warning. The idea behind signing an elite creative attacking midfielder and world-class centre-forward simultaneously is sound but they found it does not always work in practice – outside of pre-season games against Juventus.

Veron was brought in to load the chamber and Van Nistelrooy to pull the trigger in the same way Liverpool hope Wirtz and Isak can combine to take their attack to the next level. Veron’s signing was a total misfire for a variety of reasons and even Van Nistelrooy’s personal brilliance came at the cost of team cohesion and success.

Slot might handle that side of the tactical and coaching transition better than Ferguson and Isak already being acclimatised to the Premier League could be a significant advantage, while Wirtz feels like a more natural fit than Veron ever was.

But with this “massive summer” comes colossal expectations beyond the mere defence of their Premier League title. A resoundingly triumphant season has to follow this statement of intent.