FSG reversed 'informal ban' on transfer to complete game-changing Liverpool deal

FSG reversed 'informal ban' on transfer to complete game-changing Liverpool deal

Liverpool's former director of research Ian Graham has opened up on the process that led the club completing a £75m deal Virgil van Dijk in 2018

Klopp and Van Dijk

Liverpool's former director of research Ian Graham has opened up on the process that led to the club completing a £75m deal for Virgil van Dijk.

The Reds made the Dutchman the most expensive player in Anfield history when he moved from Southampton in January 2018, having initially been tracked the previous summer before the club were forced to cool their interest after the Saints threatened a tapping-up complaint.

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Since moving to Anfield, Van Dijk has gone on to win every top-level trophy available and has made 318 appearances for the Reds while spending the last two seasons as club captain having succeeded Jordan Henderson in 2023.

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The Netherlands skipper is widely viewed as one of the finest defenders in Liverpool's history and a transformative signing of the Premier League era for the Reds, and speaking on the High Performance podcast, Dr Graham detailed how Van Dijk was captured.

"He's now been surpassed by a couple of others but it was definitely not in the Fenway Sports Group playbook to break the world transfer record for a central defender," Graham says.

"Six months later we broke the goalkeeper world record (for Alisson Becker) before Chelsea smashed it for Kepa a few weeks later.

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"So yeah, going back to that 17/18 season, you had that classic Liverpool frontline of Salah, Mane, Firmino and you had Coutinho pulling the strings, a player I absolutely love. The creative force of the team. A player who took too many shots from distance for my liking but we can forgive him for that.

"We rated ourselves as in the top five attacks in the world, top 20 defensively. Those four players didn't start together all that often because against a big team, that is attack loaded, even for a manager with an adventurous style like Jurgen Klopp.

"So we knew the next thing was to rebuild the defence. We were lucky in some ways, I say lucky, we took advantage of a situation that might not have arisen. PSG signed Neymar for £200m and Barcelona didn't think they were going to do that because he had a stupid release clause. So they were desperate for an attacker.

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"So that world-record Van Dijk fee was paid for by Coutinho going to Barcelona, so it was effectively a swap of a world-class attacker - and we already had three others, so we were in quite a good position in attack - for two world-class defenders in Van Dijk and Alisson.

"There's a concept in football and every aspect of life of diminishing returns, so for every extra attacker you put on who wants to take a shot..so if Coutinho and Mo Salah take three shots each a game, they're not going to take six shots together in the same game, it's five or five-and-a-half because they take shots from each other.

"So because our attack was so loaded, there were diminishing returns, so it was hard to put all four players out on the pitch at the same time. The question becomes: here's the opportunity and we wanted to strengthen the defence anyway, Fenway would have spent to strengthen the defence.

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"But now a whole sort of supermarket of options opens up that we might not have had. Fenway were always happy to invest in the team with any transfer profits that were made, happy to invest that back in the team. And here is this big amount of money.

"And what of the biggest advantages of having Jurgen at the club was players loved him, his football and wanted to play for him. So convincing a player of the idea to come to Liverpool, it was easy when Jurgen was in charge. You see this guy with the big smile, that is why you're going to come to Liverpool, right?

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"So it was literally [a case of] 'who do you want?' That being said, it's still hard to take clubs from other big Champions League teams, they don't want to sell to a competitor, wages are typically a lot higher than non Champions League teams.

"Virgil helped that he had played brilliantly in the past against Liverpool but he was the best defender under 27 outside of a Champions League team.

"You put Champions League teams in, he might drop to two or three, so it was like: 'How is this guy not playing for a Champions League team?'

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"Why wasn't he? He took a long time to come to the boil, so he was probably underrated a little bit at Celtic because at Celtic you don't have to defend, you have the ball for 90 minutes.

"So you only see games against Rangers and Europe, where Celtic are now huge underdogs, so you're not really seeing the set of things he'd need to do in the Premier League.

"If he was at a big German or Spanish club or even medium-sized, we'd see more challenges he'd face in the Premier League a bit more. So Southampton, great recruitment from them, but his seasons at Southampton really gave us the evidence, he is a great defender above their level. He was 26 when we signed him, so a late developer really.

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"It was quite funny that with Fenway, there was an informal ban on signing players over the age of 24. Our good signings, Mane, Firmino, Salah 24, Robertson 23...it came from the top, the smart people who run the group."

Graham added: "I remember one of the owners [asking] why are we looking at under 27 (and not 24)? Centre-backs continue producing into their mid-30s, the top ones. Thiago Silva kept going at Chelsea, I was always impressed, he's a brilliant player, but I'd say 'oh surely not another season out of him?'

"So centre-backs skew older, so signing a centre-back at 26 is 24 in forward years, it's like dog years. So we're going to get plenty of years out of him. There were 24-year-olds on the market for lower fees but maybe higher wages, so the all-in cost was more. Journalists always focus on the transfer fee but it doesn't matter how you spend the money, it is the all-in cost.

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"So that combination: the transfer fee and the wages - which were high as well - was maybe not as high as a player from a current Champions League team."

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