Richard Hughes has departed his role as Liverpool’s sporting director but after two years at the club, how does his transfer record stand up?
The former Bournemouth technical director leaves Anfield to move to Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal and he signed 16 players for a fee during his time on Merseyside.
Here’s our ranking of every one of them:
16) Jeremie Frimpong – £29.5m
Liverpool really do look like they have been hoodwinked over Jeremie Frimpong.
He is not defensively good enough to play as a full-back and not offensively good enough to play as a winger, so just 12 months on from signing him, Liverpool are asking where they should play the man who cost £30m?
There is already talk of Dominik Szoboszlai being shoehorned in there just to fix the problem until Conor Bradley returns and against Ipswich, Iraola preferred to play Ronald Araujo in the role. Meanwhile, Cody Gakpo and Victor Munoz are better options on the wing.
It feels like the start of the end for Frimpong already.
15) Florian Wirtz – £100m (plus 16.2m in add-ons)
If Wirtz had cost £60m, his performances would be a lot easier to forgive, but being the fourth most expensive signing in Premier League history means the spotlight is always going to shine brighter.
Wirtz has 18 goal involvements in his 52 appearances for Liverpool, which is simply not enough bang for that massive buck.
Last season, his slow start was blamed on a transition to the physicality of the Premier League and he would not be the first Bundesliga export to have this problem, but he has had 12 months under the supervision of some of the best personal trainers and nutritionists in the world, so that’s not really an excuse.
He hasn’t been helped by Liverpool not having a natural position for him; he works better off the left wing for Germany but Andoni Iraola plays with fast wingers in the mould of Antoine Semenyo and now Bradley Barcola. Move him into the number 10 and he gets in the way of Szoboszlai.
There are reasons to his underperformance but there are plenty of players in the league who would have produced a lot more with the talent around them.
14) Federico Chiesa – £10m (plus £2.5m in add-ons)
Maybe it’s because he was available for cheap but there have been few clues about why Liverpool even bothered to sign Chiesa.
He has barely featured under successive managers and is linked with a move away in January but for £10m, it’s not the worst expenditure in Hughes’ tenure.
13) Armin Pecsi – £1.5m
One for the future as Liverpool signed the 20-year-old from Hungarian side Puskás Akadémia.
He is currently on loan at TSV Hartberg in Austria and looks a long way off the Liverpool first team.
12) Lucca Brughmans – £30m
That is an awful lot of money for an 18-year-old keeper but not a deal you can properly judge until later in his career.
He came from Genk and will stay there until the end of this season.
11) Djylian N’Guessan – £4.3m
The final transfer of Hughes’ reign was 18-year-old winger Djylian N’Guessan, who joined from Saint-Etienne.
It will be a good long while before he is seen in the Liverpool first team you suspect and he is currently on loan at Brest.
10) Ifeanyi Ndukwe – £2.6m
The 18-year-old looked impressive in Liverpool’s pre-season friendlies but Brexit rules meant he was unable to play due to the lack of a work permit.
As such, he has been loaned out to Levante but has yet to play for his new side.
9) Ronald Araujo – loan with option of £47.14m
It’s only a loan for now but looks a smart bit of business with an optional purchase fee of £47.14m.
If the win at Portman Road is anything to go by, Araujo could feature primarily at right back and he looked a far more defensively solid option than Frimpong.
8) Giovanni Leoni – £26m
It’s going to have to be a wait and see in terms of his actual playing career but Leoni does look a smart bit of business for the Merseyside club.
He’s still in his teens, suggesting he has many years to come at the top level if he can return to that, and looked promising before his lengthy injury.
7) Giorgi Mamardashvili – £25.6m (plus £4.3m in add-ons)
Alisson looks increasingly like a goalkeeper on his way out from the top level and so the big test of Mamardashvili will likely come in the next few years.
Considering the amount they spent on Alisson, Giorgi Mamardashvili is far cheaper and while there will naturally be a step down from the Brazilian, the Georgian is still expected to be one of the best keepers in the league.
6) Milos Kerkez – £40m
Of Liverpool’s two expensive full-back purchases last summer, there is at least some hope for Kerkez.
The fact that he played well under Iraola is a positive and he looks more naturally suited to the position than Frimpong.
Replacing Andy Robertson was always likely to be a step down in quality but, even if he is a little rash at times defensively, there are positive signs there.
5) Victor Munoz – £34.5m
Already looks like a very good signing, especially for not a huge amount of money.
He is clearly a player who loves to dribble at opponents and even if that skill has not yet been refined, there are early signs of encouragement.
He’s got his first Premier League goal but may be dropped to the bench now that Barcola has arrived.
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4) Bradley Barcola – £106m (plus £17m in add-ons)
Considering he’s only played 26 minutes of football for his new club, judging Barcola by his on-pitch performance is a little premature so we will have to talk about his potential instead.
Cliché alert but it is a ‘statement of intent’ signing from Liverpool and he is obviously one of the best players in the world, but there is also a reason why PSG let him go.
Barcola has been criticised for a lack of end product; he was PSG’s joint third top scorer last season but played nine games more than leader Ousmane Dembele. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who played the same number of matches but fewer minutes, had 19 compared to Barcola’s 13.
You also cannot ignore the fact that Liverpool spent an enormous amount of money on him, the same money that should perhaps have been used to rejuvenate the midfield.
It’s a signing with a lot of potential but could just as easily slip into the Wirtz category of expensive failure.
3) Jeremy Jacquet – £55m (plus £5m in add-ons)
Looks to have filled the Ibrahima Konate slot nicely and has done well alongside Virgil Van Dijk.
£60m is a lot for a defender but seems about the going rate these days and at 21, the Frenchman could be in the team for years to come.
2) Alexander Isak — £125m (plus £5m in add-ons)
While his debut season was a mess of fitness and injury problems, his start to this season has looked a lot more promising.
His brace at Ipswich was a sign of what he can do with the first a powerful strike and then the second a show of his technical skill to weave through the defence and roll into an empty net.
But how many goals do you have to score to be worth £125m? For that kind of money, you want game-winning performances in the latter stages of both the Champions League and the Premier League so the big test for Isak is still to come.
1) Hugo Ekitike – £69m (plus £10m in add-ons)
Easily the best signing of the Hughes era has been Hugo Ekitike.
The Frenchman came at a time when the club had its eyes set on another striker but his early performances suggested they need not spend so much money on Isak.
As fortune would have it, an Achilles injury has seen him sidelined for a number of months but should he return as the same player, Liverpool have one of the best attackers in the world and one that is only 24 too.
How to fit Ekitike, Barcola, Isak and others in the same team is a problem for Iraola and even though Ekitike was the cheapest, he has already made the strongest case for starting.
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