Everyone Said They'd Won the Window: How This Club's ‘Best Summer Ever’ Has Turned Into a Nightmare

Everyone Said They'd Won the Window: How This Club's ‘Best Summer Ever’ Has Turned Into a Nightmare

£420 million spent. Seven players brought in. Expectations sky-high. And their transfer window labelled as one of the best ever. And yet Liverpool have received next to no return on their eye-watering summer investment.

Alexander Isak (£125M), Florian Wirtz (£108M), Hugo Ekitike (£82M), Milos Kerkez (£40M) and Jeremie Frimpong (£35) arrived at the club under no illusions of what was expected of them. They would have to adapt immediately, and instantly slot into the team that walked to the Premier League title so comfortably last season.

Of the five listed above, the only player to come remotely close to passing the Anfield test thus far is Ekitike - the rest? Well, while some could say they have failed to get out of first gear, it wouldn’t be harsh to state that they have found reverse instead.

With so much fanfare surrounding their arrival, it is hard to believe that when looking at their summer transfer business, we can say with a fair amount of certainty that four of them have flopped in a big way.

How did we get here? How has the Slot Machine become so broken after such success in season one? And do these summer signings have the potential to succeed at Anfield?

Transfer Window Of Dreams

When Florian Wirtz was announced as a Liverpool player, Reds fans could be seen all over social media saying, “We mean business.” By the time Alexander Isak arrived, their last and most expensive signing of the transfer window, not even Liverpool fans could believe their eyes. The summer business really did look that good.

Isak was being heralded as the world’s best striker behind Haaland and Mbappe, Wirtz as the greatest playmaker on current form, Frimpong as part of the 2023/24 Bayer Leverkusen invincibles, Kerkez as one of the most promising full backs on the planet, and Ekitike as the next elite-level striker to come out of Germany.

And yet remarkably, almost all of them have failed to settle on Merseyside - Isak has just one goal and one assist in seven games, Wirtz has none of either in the 10 games since his solitary assist in the Community Shield, and both Frimpong and Kerkez have looked fine in attack, but shaky at best in defence. For Frimpong, this is acceptable - he is one of the world's elite attacking full-backs. But for Kerkez, who impressed at both ends of the pitch for Bournemouth last season, his form has been unacceptable.

Everything just looks incredibly disjointed - attacks break down too easily, and opponents carve their way through a world-class midfield without breaking sweat. Arne Slot’s facial expressions on the sideline tell you all you need to know - this is not the vision when he assembled his equivalent of “The Galacticos” in the summer.

It’s Not Just the Signings …

Worse still, the summer transfer window appears to have unsettled some of the clubs' best existing players, none more so than Mo Salah. Treated as effectively a new signing when he signed a new contract amidst rumours he would leave at the end of his previous deal, the Egyptian King entered the new campaign off the back of his best individual season since 2017/18.

And yet this season, the Liverpool great has looked like a lost child who just wants to hold his parent’s hand. Rarely involved in attacking moves, and missing that goalscoring instinct that has seen him send Anfield wild on numerous occasions, he has been nothing more than an occasionally involved bystander.

It spoke volumes when he was subbed off against Man United at the weekend, with his side 2-1 behind and chasing the game. In seasons gone by, Salah would be the only player you would choose to stay on the pitch every time - his rapid turn of pace, typically clinical finishing and endless energy are the perfect cocktail to catch out tiring backlines.

However, with the Egyptian so out of form, Slot thought it best to bring on Frimpong in his position, illustrating just how drastically the winger’s form has fallen off a cliff.

It is much the same story with Virgil van Dijk - another who allayed the fans’ vocal fears of him leaving at the end of the season with a new contract; the looming Dutchman hasn’t looked himself since day one this season.

His typically elegant, anticipation-orientated style, which had seen him pocket some of the world's finest goal scorers, suddenly seems to have expired - attackers are no longer scared of facing up to him, with his criticised “Bluetooth defending” style seemingly having been found out by the majority of top-flight forwards.

He is also getting on in age - at 34, many players would have jumped ship to Turkey, Saudi Arabia or the MLS in a bid to secure one last big pay cheque and an easier, less challenging style of football

The rest of the side has also struggled to adapt to the heavy turnover that occurred in the summer: Alexis Mac Allister has struggled to assert himself in midfield, Ibrahima Konate has struggled more often than not in the centre of defence, and even Alisson has looked bereft of his usual shot-stopping magic.

The only existing players who can come out of their shaky early-season run with any credit are Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo, who, despite the myriad of changes around them, have maintained high-quality consistency since gameweek one.

At What Point Does it Become a Problem Instead of a Blip?

Yes, the new signings struggling to adjust to the Premier League could just be a classic case of struggling to become comfortable in their new surroundings - we see it all the time, and very few take to England’s top flight in the way Erling Haaland did.

But by now, particularly from the two £100 million-plus men, you would have expected to see some meaningful output by now, and it is worrying that so far, this output has been elusive. Isak has been especially poor, failing to establish himself in the way he did at Newcastle, and many are now calling for Ekitike, who has netted five times in 11 games, to start ahead of him until the Swede shows signs of a resurgence.

Even Ekitike’s friends have started to voice this opinion on social media - one of his friends, going by the name of Ramses, uploaded an enlightening post to X in a bid to draw attention to the fact that his buddy needs to play more.

In every Premier League game Ekitike has started, Liverpool have won each and every time. In the games where Isak has started ahead of the Frenchman, Liverpool boast a 100% losing record. Biased? Perhaps? But does he have a point? Absolutely.

Where do Liverpool go from here? There is no doubt that Isak and Wirtz will eventually start to deliver on their promise - they are the sort of players who simply don’t know how to stay quiet for an entire season, but it is now a matter of how long it takes them to find their feet.

The same applies to Frimpong and Kerkez, who are yet to show the high level they maintained across the entirety of last season. There is no doubt now that because of their early-season teething problems, Liverpool are no longer favourites for the title.

Arsenal are looking extremely good, and are grinding out results in tricky games in a way characteristic of great PL champions of the past. But Liverpool need to limit the damage to that - if they slip any further, there could be shock discussions about their top four credentials.

With that being said, you can never count out the men in red. Time and again they have dug themselves out of seemingly bottomless holes. The question we are all asking this season is if this is now a bridge too far.