Liverpool's Transfer Window Countdown: Key Departures and Future Plans
The clock is ticking. The transfer window is edging towards its final stretch and Liverpool, reshaped and restless under Andoni Iraola, are still not done.
The Premier League season is now less than a week away. For some, the excitement is about kick-off. For others, it is the dread of the deadline – that familiar jolt when the market finally slams shut on Tuesday, September 1 at 11pm.
Business opened back on June 15. Since then, Liverpool have been far more restrained than the wild spending of last summer, when almost £450million went on new faces and close to £225m worth of talent went out the door. This time, the chequebook has stayed tighter. The squad, though, is still in flux. Iraola has made it clear: if Liverpool want to bother the elite again, there is work to do.
Big names gone, questions everywhere
The rebuild started with a jolt. Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate all walked away on free transfers at the end of last season, joined by Academy products Rhys Williams and James Balagizi. That is experience, leadership and dressing-room weight stripped out in one hit.
Only one player has actually brought in a fee so far. Luca Stephenson joined Championship new boys Bolton Wanderers for £700,000. Another midfielder, Tommy Pilling, has headed to Slovakia with MFK Zemplin Michalovce.
Now the uncertainty is creeping closer to the core of Iraola’s group.
Curtis Jones remains a live target for Inter Milan, with Galatasaray having tracked him earlier in the window. Liverpool want more than £30m for a midfielder who is out of contract next summer. Harvey Elliott sits in a similar contractual position, with Sunderland and Leeds United both linked. These are not fringe names; they are the next generation who were supposed to carry the club forward.
Joe Gomez, Wataru Endo, Kostas Tsimikas, Stefan Bajcetic, Virgil van Dijk, Calvin Ramsay and Alisson Becker are all in the final 12 months of their current deals. Ramsay and Bajcetic could be allowed to leave on loan. The rest? Iraola expects them to be central figures this season, even with the contractual cloud hanging overhead.
Talk around Alexis Mac Allister’s future has quietened. He has two years left on his deal and is now back at the AXA Training Centre after the World Cup, and the noise has faded for now. Cody Gakpo, a long-term target for Tottenham Hotspur, has not yet attracted anything resembling a concrete bid.
Behind the senior squad, the Academy is being reshaped at speed. Midfielder James McConnell is close to a loan move to Preston North End in the Championship.
Ifeanyi Ndukwe, the 18-year-old centre-back who has impressed in pre-season after a £2.6m move from Austria Vienna, cannot play competitively for Liverpool this year. That has triggered a scramble: clubs in Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and France all want him on loan.
Liverpool are also braced for interest in Lewis Koumas. He was on the verge of joining Craig Bellamy at Burnley before the plug was pulled on the Wales head coach’s switch to Turf Moor. That deal may have died, but the forward’s market has not.
Keyrol Figueroa is being tracked for a loan by several clubs, including Barnsley in League One and Salford City and Shrewsbury Town in League Two. Jayden Danns is expected to attract similar attention once he returns to fitness later this month. Goalkeeper Kornel Misciur, another 18-year-old, has already drawn interest from a number of non-league sides.
Some of the younger faces have their next steps confirmed. Armin Pecsi will spend the season with Austrian side TSV Hartberg. Midfielder Kyle Kelly has joined Forest Green Rovers in the National League. Defender Amara Nallo is already in Finland with HJK Helsinki for the rest of the year.
Iraola’s defence rebuilt, attack still missing a piece
While players have trickled out, the headline arrivals have been deliberate and targeted.
Victor Munoz came through the door in June after Liverpool triggered his £34.5m release clause at Osasuna. The club then finalised a £60m deal, agreed earlier in the year, for 21-year-old centre-back Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes.
Even with those moves, Iraola was blunt: Liverpool were light at the back. The club responded. Last week, they struck an agreement with Barcelona to bring in club captain Ronald Araujo on loan for the season, with an option to buy for £47m. It is a statement signing, and a clear nod to how Iraola wants his back line to look.
The picture further forward is less settled.
Liverpool are still chasing a winger. They were prepared to go as high as £86m for 19-year-old Yan Diomande, only for RB Leipzig to push for more than £100m and for it to become clear the player preferred a path that runs through Paris Saint-Germain and eventually Real Madrid.
Monaco’s Maghnes Akliouche was explored earlier in the summer, but he chose PSG. Anthony Gordon was also on the radar before he opted for Barcelona.
The scouting net has been wide. Brighton’s Yanbuka Minteh, Said El Mala of Koln and Lille’s Matias Fernandez-Pardo have all been assessed. None have yet been pulled into Anfield.
Instead, one name has moved to the front of the queue: Bradley Barcola. The PSG attacker has emerged as Liverpool’s clear priority on the wing, with talks already held over a possible deal. Barcola is understood to be open to the move. The problem is the price. PSG want at least £130m, a figure Liverpool would need them to shift on before anything becomes realistic.
The club remain open to adding both another attacker and a new midfield option. The next moves, though, hinge on exits. If one or more of those senior players in the final year of their contracts are moved on, space opens up. If not, Iraola may have to go into his first Premier League campaign at Anfield knowing that the squad he truly wants is still a window away.
The deadline is coming. The question now is whether Liverpool blink, or push through the final days with the ruthlessness that used to define them in the market.
