Richard Hughes will be a busy man when he officially starts work as a Liverpool Football Club employee on June 1.
Indeed, the club’s new sporting director will likely be putting the finishing touches to a deal for a new manager, and he has a backlog of contract negotiations to be getting on with, but it’s in the transfer market where he’ll find himself judged by supporters.
Hired by one of his predecessors in the role, Michael Edwards, Hughes has big shoes to fill – and he’ll need to work closely with Liverpool’s new manager and recruitment department to get the transfer formula right this summer.
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It looks like it might be a summer of fine tuning after a period of rebuilding last year, particularly the centre of midfield.
But although Wataru Endo, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch have added some depth and quality to the middle of the pitch, the anticipated departure of Thiago Alcantara frees up a space in the squad for a quality operator in the engine room.
The Spaniard is one of the highest earners in the squad, so his anticipated exit means there will be few issues about paying the going rate for a top-class midfielder. Injuries, as the last few months have proven, are inescapable so while a full complement of midfielders is the envy of most squads at Liverpool, the fact is that more will be needed.
And at a time when there is so much quality across the squad, most of them at young ages with plenty of room to improve, this summer, with Champions League back on the agenda, surely has to be about quality rather than quantity. Supply the new manager with the handful of top-quality players he needs, like Klopp was last year, and who knows what might be possible for the new man in charge.
This is a season that has changed a great deal for the future of Liverpool. The news of Jurgen Klopp’s departure was a huge shock and Michael Edwards’ return to run the club was also a surprise.
But there have been huge changes on the pitch, too.
Going into this season, it was felt Liverpool desperately needed a midfielder and defender to bolster their squad but during the campaign we’ve seen Jarell Quansah emerge as a genuine, long-term option and Wataru Endo prove any doubters wrong to became an automatic choice in midfield. Along with the progress made by Bobby Clark and excellent of both Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, the squad is looking strong indeed.
