Now’s probably a good time to sit back and listen to people praise the club’s strategy.
This weekend—with Luis Diaz a new signing and the Reds inching closer to signing Fabio Carvalho—is one of the best times to talk about Liverpool’s signing strategy and the team FSG has built. For Arsenal legend and football commentator, Ian Wright, the signing that clubs should be looking to emulate is in the past, though.
“[The issue] is where people are buying the wrong type of player without fitting them in,” Wright said this weekend. “This is where the Virgil van Dijk signing is absolutely perfect.”
“That’s why they would have paid another £25m for him – you look at how Virgil was playing for Celtic, he is playing exactly the same now. This is why all of the top teams have missed out on a player that was showing, the fact that he was playing in a league that wasn’t as good as the Premier League, but Liverpool have benefited from it.”
Wright compares van Dijk’s success at Liverpool with Manchester United’s Pogba signing from eighteen months prior to that. It’s not a great comparison, given the highs and lows United have seen (Mourinho being one of the worst of the lows) and the constant support van Dijk received at Liverpool, but Wright’s overall point is a good one: make sure the players you’re signing are a good fit for your team.
“He is a player we saw when he played for Juventus, on the left, with a very well-balanced midfield and played with freedom,” Wright said about Pogba. “Aaron Ramsey, the same kind of player. He plays with freedom. You need the right players.”
Hopefully Luis Diaz, and everyone else that the Reds sign this transfer season, are a great fit for a team that seems to be going from strength to strength.
