Liverpool look set to take their summer spending way beyond the £200m mark with the addition of Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike.
The Reds have had a massive transfer window so far, blasting through the club’s record outlay to sign Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen.
Wirtz has arrived alongside Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez to the tune of around £190m.
But Liverpool are not done yet. And although their hopes of signing Alexander Isak for another record sum have now been dashed, Ekitike‘s likely arrival will reportedly set them back another £70m at least.
Fans around the Premier League may be wondering exactly how Liverpool are able to afford such splurges in the market.
For many who pose that very question online, the answer that arrives is by way of ‘the Philippe Coutinho money’. But while this may be a tongue-in-cheek response, the reality is that Liverpool are still very much benefitting from Coutinho’s record sale to Barcelona in 2018.
Liverpool used Philippe Coutinho sale to springboard success
Questions about Liverpool’s spending in the market are not new. The Reds paid big sums for the likes of Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk back in 2018.
That transformative pair cost around £150m between them, almost the exact same figure the Liverpool owners banked for Coutinho’s £142m sale.
Clearly, the captures of Alisson and Van Dijk would not have been possible without Coutinho being sold. But the benefit of having two bona fide superstars in key positions has been felt at Anfield ever since.
The Reds immediately made it to the Champions League final after signing Van Dijk, before Alisson’s arrival helped them win the trophy the year after.
READ MORE: Liverpool aiming to wrap up £70m Hugo Ekitike deal in lightning speed as timeframe revealed
From there, Liverpool got better and better. As they improved on the pitch, cash began to filter into the club’s coffers much, much more freely.
At the heart of everything have been Alisson and Van Dijk, the two big-money signings who Coutinho helped to fund. Without Jurgen Klopp sacrificing his best player in January 2018, who knows where Liverpool would be today.
What is clear is that the knock-on effect of selling Coutinho has left the Reds in a very good place financially for years to come.
Newcastle set for sliding doors moment after Isak snub
For Liverpool fans, the hope had been that as they tried to target Isak from Newcastle, the Magpies would see the benefit in having their own ‘Coutinho moment’.
They could have sold their star man for more than £120m and reinvested that into bringing in a game-changing signing or two. Instead, they have stood firm.
While Toon fans will no doubt rejoice in keeping hold of their top scorer, the wiser, longer-term thinking may have been to learn from Liverpool’s success and try to replicate it.
The Reds have been on a path to financial security ever since the low-point of letting Coutinho leave. They had to feel some short-term pain for long-term gain. Newcastle could have done the same.
Liverpool have made plenty of good decisions ever since which has helped them stay at the top and keep on reaping the rewards, but it all began with the little magician and his infamously mysterious back injury.
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