Liverpool: Klopp’s “staggering” signing has cost them £17m for every goal

The Reds phenom has been unable to exhibit his superlative skills with regularity since signing…

Jurgen Klopp was faced with a quandary. It was the summer of 2020; Liverpool had just added the Premier League title to their conquering of the Champions League the year before, and the club’s enduring midfield trio of Fabinho, Gini Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson was poised for change.

Not instantaneous, mind. Wijnaldum was approaching the final year of his contract and was being pursued by Barcelona. A new deal was not out of the question, but increasingly unlikely and eventually, as is now known, fruitless.

It was an industrious, turbo-charged midfield engine that had fuelled the illustrious success under Klopp’s stewardship, allowing the venerated attack of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah to prosper and wreak havoc.

Klopp needed a solution, and that solution came in the form of midfield maestro Thiago Alcantara, who was one of the most respected pass masters in Europe after a fantastic career with, notably, Barcelona and German giants Bayern Munich.

How much did Liverpool pay for Thiago Alcantara?

On August 17th, 2020, Liverpool announced the £20m acquisition of Thiago, with the Spaniard ending a silver-laden spell in Munich that saw him make 235 appearances, scoring 31 goals, supplying 37 assists and winning a wealth of major honours – including the treble in his final season.

This was the first permanent addition to the central midfield since Fabinho’s signing two years prior and would remain the solitary move (barring the loan signing of Arthur Melo) until the addition of Alexis Mac Allister this summer.

Now three years into his stay at Anfield, Thiago, aged 32, has entered the final year of his contract and has won the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, but there is a sense of poignancy surrounding the player, who has not quite harnessed the full scale of his abundant skills under Klopp’s wing.

What salary does Thiago earn at Liverpool?

Over the 160 weeks that the £200k-per-week midfielder has spent on Merseyside, he has missed a shocking amount of time on the pitch due to injury, indeed sidelined for 76 matches across his three seasons at the outfit.

Having now entered his fourth year, Thiago has yet to appear after concluding the 2022/23 campaign prematurely due to injury, and is not expected to return for another few weeks at the least.

When combining Thiago’s cost in wages since his arrival with the transfer fee paid, Liverpool have forked out £52m for Thiago’s services, which will total over £60m by the time he exits Anfield next June.

While it’s perhaps unfair to brand the maestro’s signing a disaster, he has undoubtedly failed to perform at the highest level with the regularity that Klopp would have hoped for, and granted, injuries have been the crux of his inhibitment, but the fact remains the same.

How good is Thiago Alcantara?

That being said, Thiago is still one of the most elegant, graceful gems the Premier League holds in its ranks, which is all the more frustrating for Liverpool supporters desperate to see their Spanish star shine with consistency.

As per FBref, the diminutive 5 foot 7 ace ranks among the top 4% of midfielders across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for passes attempted, the top 7% for progressive passes, the top 6% for tackles and the top 10% for blocks per 90.

Across his 97 matches for the Reds, Thiago has only scored three goals and supplied six assists, meaning that for each time he’s found the net, he has cost them £17m. That said, the prowess of his deep-lying play has been “staggering” – as was once said by pundit and former Liverpool player Michael Owen.

Two of his three campaigns at Anfield have also been the roughest across Klopp’s tenure, possibly with the 46-cap international’s style of play not quite gelling perfectly after replacing Wijnaldum.

Regardless, he is a superlative and technical star, all the more reason to rue what could have been had Thiago escaped the shackles of the medical room over the past three years.