Liverpool smash transfer decision again with baffling £70m rejection after Edwards steps in

Michael Edwards has played another transfer blinder for Liverpool, while Ruud van Nistelrooy might already be on the brink at Leicester after just ten games.

Brentford 0-2 Liverpool: Darwin awards Reds for their patience

Michael Edwards has done it again. It seemed like his greatest transfer decisions at Liverpool were set in stone, that his new role in the club’s infrastructure placed him above such banal tasks as selling academy players for pure profit or scouring the squads of relegated Premier League clubs for ridiculous bargains.

Yet after apparently stepping in to handle negotiations over a potential Darwin Nunez sale and rejecting a £70m bid, he might have kept Liverpool’s title bid on track.

Those two goals might have added a fair bit more to any valuation. Nunez has been poor for Arne Slot but there remains that alluring thought of how effective he could be if those raw ingredients are properly harnessed.

It tends to be these late flourishes – against Manchester City and Fulham in his first two games for the club, against Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth last season and now Brentford this – that fuel the fantasy. Liverpool know Nunez has not delivered on his promise, but just when all hope seems lost he issues a compelling reminder that he can. It might never properly click but the idea it could is irresistible.

Slot’s knack with substitutions always gives him a chance. Nunez was sent on with Andy Robertson in the 65th minute against Brentford, by which time the Reds had mustered 25 shots. Eight more came between then and the 80th minute, when Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones were introduced, with Federico Chiesa brought on soon after. After 35 efforts on Brentford’s goal, all looked lost. Well, drawn.

But Chiesa and Elliott, both enduring difficult seasons for vastly different reasons, later combined to provide Nunez with the sort of chance he only takes if he has already scored. He is the most Confidence Player imaginable and would never have taken that touch to steady himself in the area before firing into the roof of the net had he not already converted Trent Alexander-Arnold’s centre two minutes prior.

Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal players will claim not to have watched the game or seen the result prior to their evening match against Aston Villa because cliches exist for a reason, but they might well have sensed the unmistakable vibe of Nunez pulling everyone back in just as belief was fading – in the Uruguayan but also Liverpool’s title stamina.

Leicester 0-2 Fulham: Foxes left in less than Ruud health

‘They think he can unite the club and fanbase, lift the players and restore a feel-good factor,’ read one line from the well-connected Athletic journalist Rob Tanner in explaining why Leicester chose Ruud van Nistelrooy.

A far more pertinent question after just ten games is why he chose them. It always looked like a thoroughly poor fit for his first permanent post in Premier League management, and a complete waste of what little stock he had built during that brief interim reign at Manchester United.

Having beaten the Foxes twice as caretaker at Old Trafford, it remains the case that Leicester’s manager has as many wins against them as he has for them this season. That start against West Ham looks like more of a freak result with each game and trouncing QPR in the FA Cup was essentially meaningless.

As for Leicester’s hope that Van Nistelrooy might ‘unite the club and fanbase, lift the players and restore a feel-good factor’ after the similarly doomed Steve Cooper spell, that went up in flames at home to Fulham.

The line-up was questioned, the substitutions were booed, the tactics were bafflingly rudimentary and understandable fan ire was apportioned evenly between the owner, the director of football and the manager. Van Nistelrooy was the one treated to a rendition of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ after bringing on Bilal El Khannouss, but really that charge could be levelled at anyone in any recent decision-making capacity at the King Power.

West Ham 0-2 Crystal Palace: Time is of the essence for upwardly-mobile Eagles

“It takes time” reiterated Oliver Glasner after the midweek victory over Leicester, the opening leg of Crystal Palace’s first pair of consecutive Premier League wins all season.

He is proving to be one of the better managers when afforded that particular virtue. After starting his reign with a thumping victory over Burnley, Glasner drew two and lost three of his next five games before embarking on a ludicrous season-ending run of six wins – and 21 goals – in seven matches.

The Austrian himself described 2024/25 as “the worst start in the Premier League history of Crystal Palace” but “now it’s the opposite”: one win in 13 games has blended seamlessly into one defeat in 11 for the Eagles, who have as many points as Liverpool and Newcastle since the November international break.

A couple of 2-0 wins have been registered in the most straightforward of fashions imaginable. West Ham did not have a single shot on target and if Graham Potter was in any doubt as to the quicksand-based foundations upon which he is expected to build then he need wonder no more. The goodwill from that impressive Fulham win has already dissipated.

Konstantinos Mavropanos was sent off late on, Max Kilman continues to be first on the scene of a disaster and the midfield and attack varied on a scale of poor to non-existent.

Being overtaken and lapped in the competence stakes by Palace cannot help. That is intended as no insult whatsoever to the comfortable victors at the London Stadium but West Ham have more in-built advantages, came up into the Premier League a season earlier and there is no reason they cannot make the same sort of joined-up, sensible decisions which have helped Palace thrive.

This is a club with a strong, solid structure and identity, able to absorb the loss of the excellent Trevoh Chalobah to his parent club, while bringing in Romain Esse in precisely the sort of transfer they excel at making. It is no guarantee but sometimes things really do just take “time”.

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