The Reds love snapping players up from the Saints, but at a considerable south coast mark-up. So how much would they have saved if they’d have got in there first?
Sometimes you just like shopping in certain places, so much so that you’ll keep going back there.
And Liverpool like shopping at Southampton. They like it a LOT.
On January 1, Virgil van Dijk will become the eighth player they’ve signed from the Saints in the Premier League era, with six of those coming in the last three-and-a-half years.
On Wednesday it was announced that Van Dijk will join the Reds when the transfer window opens for a staggering £75m – a world record fee for a defender.
Some of the players who made the journey from Southampton to Liverpool proved to be more successful than others, but almost all of them came in for a lot more money than the Saints paid for them.
Because while the Reds like signing players from the Saints, they also like doing so at a considerable mark-up in price.
All of which begs the question: Wouldn’t they have been better off making these signings before they’d made the move south?
Well, yes. Obviously.
Here’s how the difference stacks up.
Peter Crouch – Signed by Southampton from Aston Villa for £2.5m in 2004, then sold to Liverpool for £7m in 2005 = a £4.5m mark-up
The giant forward set a trend when he left relegated Southampton for Rafael Benitez’s European champions in 2005, and he proved a popular figure at Anfield despite only staying for three years.
Rickie Lambert – Signed by Southampton from Bristol Rovers for £1m in 2009, then sold to Liverpool for £4m in 2014 = a £3m mark-up
The term “fairytale move” was all the rage in the summer of 2014, when Rickie Lambert managed to find his way back to his boyhood club Liverpool some 17 years after he’d been released as a teenager.
We’ll just gloss over what happened when he was there.
Adam Lallana – Signed by Southampton from Bournemouth for an £18,000 compensation fee in 2006, then sold to Liverpool for £25m in 2014 = a £24,982,000 mark-up (let’s call it £25m, eh?)
There can be little doubt now that Adam Lallana has been a terrific signing for Liverpool, and his return from injury has been welcomed by the club’s fans as though he’s a new signing.
All of which makes that compensation fee seem worth it for the Saints.
Dejan Lovren – Signed by Southampton from Lyon for £8.5m in 2013, then sold to Liverpool for £20m in 2014 = a £11.5m mark-up
There have been more than a few times when the decision to pay £20m for Lovren looked more than a little crazy, but clearly the Croatian is a player than Jurgen Klopp likes, and he continues to be a key part of Liverpool’s Champions League-chasing defence.
Nathaniel Clyne – Signed by Southampton from Crystal Palace on a free transfer in 2012, then sold to Liverpool for £12.5m in 2015 = a £12.5m mark-up
Three seasons of Premier League consistency at Southampton were enough to make Clyne appeal to Brendan Rodgers, and he would prove to be one of the Northern Irishman’s final Liverpool signings when he snapped him up in the summer of 2015.
Sadio Mane – Signed by Southampton from Red Bull Salzburg for £11.8m in 2014, then sold to Liverpool for £34m in 2016 = a £22.2m mark-up
As with Lallana, you won’t find many people claiming that Liverpool overspent on Sadio Mane after his excellent first season at the club, but if they’d have spotted his talent sooner then they could have ended up saving two-thirds of what they paid for him.
Virgil van Dijk – Signed by Southampton from Celtic for £13m in 2015, then will be sold to Liverpool for £75m in January 2018
All of which means that…
Liverpool could have saved themselves a huge £140.7m if only they’d snapped up their transfer targets before Southampton got there, with the Saints paying a rather measly £36.8m for the same six players.
Players mature at different rates, of course, and it might be that Liverpool didn’t even want them when Southampton were signing them, but maybe it’d just be cheaper for the Reds to sign the Saints’ scouts instead?
Source:www.mirror.co.uk