Gary Neville says Liverpool would’ve been Champions League winners if they signed £67m man two years earlier

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Gary Neville has claimed that one Liverpool player would have won them the Premier League and Champions League if he’d have arrived earlier than he did.

The Reds have won both titles since 2019, as Jurgen Klopp returned them to the summit of European, then English club football.

But according to Neville, both trophies could have been collected earlier if Liverpool had signed Alisson Becker before they eventually did.

Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, the Manchester United legend suggested that Alisson was the key to Liverpool’s success.

“Liverpool would have won a league and a Champions League if they had Alisson a couple of seasons earlier,” Neville claimed.

Neville makes Alisson point

This is a massive oversimplification from Neville. There are so many holes in his argument.

Nobody is doubting the importance of Alisson. The 31-year-old was arguably the best in the world when Liverpool bought him for £67m in 2018. In the years since, he’s surely proven that beyond doubt.

As the seasons pass, it feels like the Brazilian is actually getting better and better still.

But had the Reds signed him in summer of 2016, who’s to say he’d have been similarly successful. At that time, Alisson had just joined Roma from Internacional.

Although he had already played for Brazil, the then 23-year-old had to be patient in the Italian capital. He pretty much sat out of the 2016/17 season, playing understudy to Wojciech Szczesny. Had he come to Liverpool, Alisson may have been first-choice over Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet, but he was still obviously very raw. Who knows how things would have gone.

It’s also worth pointing out that in 2016, Liverpool were nowhere near challenging for the title. A young Brazilian goalkeeper playing in Europe for the first time would have been unlikely to change their finishing league position from fourth to first. Also, the Reds weren’t even in the Champions League that year.

Alisson did of course go on to show his quality for Roma during the 2017/18 season. With Liverpool making it to the Champions League final – beating the Giallorossi along the way – there’s an argument that the ‘keeper would have made a difference there.

But for us, Ali joined at the perfect time. He’s since won us the big trophies and may yet do so again. We wouldn’t swap any of it.