Under the guidance of Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool’s transfer dealings have been the envy of just about every other major European club.
From the £8million acquisition of Andy Robertson from Hull, to the £36m spent on Mohamed Salah when several other outfits had already written him off after his failed stint at Chelsea, Liverpool often know what they are doing in the transfer market.
Spending a lot of money on one player is by no means a guarantee of success, just ask Chelsea, but even the mega-money moves under Klopp have been near faultless. Alisson and Virgil van Dijk both cost more than £70m each, yet you’d argue that both of those have gone on to prove themselves as bargains if anything.
And yet, none of them are who Klopp singled out as his best signing since the day he took over in the Anfield hot-seat back in October 2015. That honour instead goes to a player who didn’t cost the club a single penny in transfer fees.
When asked on the Pure Football Podcast who his best bit of business was in 2020, Klopp explained that his best signing wasn’t a signing at all, instead, it was a player he promoted from the academy. He was of course talking about current vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold.
“It’s Trent [Alexander-Arnold],” the Reds boss claimed. “We didn’t have to buy him but Pep Lijnders my assistant brought him around and said: ‘He played No.6 [role] for me. He played full-back, he played right wing, left wing’.
“Then he came and there was only one problem: Trent was not fit enough. But he was a kid so he was not fit enough but we saw immediately, wow, football-wise no doubts.
“But [he was] not fit enough so we had to work on that. But then he made steps by himself that were really unbelievable and that was really nice to see. Then he made mistakes and didn’t give up.”
Alexander-Arnold is nowadays widely viewed as one of the best in the world in his position. While some defensive fragilities remain, the England international is so technically gifted he is a source of constant attacking threat, capable of unlocking any defence with one of his trademark cross-field passes.
Liverpool still have several superstars across their squad, but few have a brighter future than Alexander-Arnold, who at the age of 25 has already won the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
