Graeme Souness questions Liverpool's $600M signings after woeful season

Former Liverpool player and manager Graeme Souness has questioned if last summer's signings are good enough, amid criticism for manager Arne Slot during a difficult season.

Graeme Souness has slammed Liverpool's summer transfers questioning if they are good enough(Image: (Photo by Greig Cowie/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images))

Graeme Souness believes that none of Liverpool's previous summer signings have "lived up to expectations" amid pressure on head coach Arne Slot, but he also claimed the Dutchman isn't "without blame" either.

It comes as the Reds crashed out of the Champions League on Tuesday at the hands of PSG, bringing an end to their hopes of landing any silverware this season. A tough away clash saw Slot's side fortunate to walk away just the two goals behind, but they couldn't make it count at Anfield in the return fixture, with another 2-0 win for the visitors securing a 4-0 aggregate defeat for Liverpool.

While there is Champions League qualification still to play for this season, the review into the club's failure to follow up on last campaign's success is already well underway, with many different reasons pointed at for causing the recent downturn in form.

A growing section of the fanbase have landed on Slot as the reason for the difficulties, but for Souness, there are questions to be asked of the players signed last summer too.

Speaking on Amazon Prime Video before Liverpool's defeat to PSG, he said: "The manager's getting it in the neck, and he's not without blame.

"When you've been the top team, you can drop off to there, but Liverpool have dropped off to there [further down]. So those players that have come in, I don't believe any of them have lived up to expectations."

When asked if it's on the manager, the former star simply retorted with: "What if they're [the players] not good enough?"

Arne Slot has been under increasing pressure at Liverpool this season(Image: (Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images))

It's a damning assessment of what proved to be an expensive transfer window for Liverpool, with $600million worth of signings making their way through the door.

There was some hope that the likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, and Hugo Ekitike could be part of a new attacking line that would take over from the influence of Mohamed Salah in the future, though there have been few signs of that so far.

On top of that were wholesale changes in the full-back ranks, with some uncertainty still remaining over Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez in their respective positions.

It leaves more questions than answers for Liverpool after what was viewed widely as the best transfer window of the summer, but has since been reflected as potentially damaging.

It remains to be seen whether the coming summer will help fix some of the issues left from one year ago, or whether the damage from such moves will have a lasting impact.

That is without talking about the manager and his own future, as well as the sporting director, with both entering the final year of their deals this summer.

So the fallout leaves questions of which direction Liverpool are going in, who is leading it, and how do they get there? Only time will tell, but the past season has shown there must be a change of course along the way.