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The 2025 summer transfer window saw Liverpool spend an eye-watering €482.90 million ($645 million) on the likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and others.
This is Chelsea-like behavior: the Reds had never topped €200 million in a single year (summer and winter windows combined), and when they came closest (2018), it was due to the sale of Phillipe Coutinho to Barcelona.
Liverpool's 2025/26 transfer window was an overcorrection to the 'FSG Out' brigade. It's a departure from the prudence and careful guardrails that the former sporting director turned FSG CEO spent so much time gently developing. More importantly, it has stolen the club's soul.
Edwards arrived at Liverpool in 2011 as the head of analytics before being elevated to the role of sporting director in 2016. His promotion marked the end of short-sighted transfers (2014: Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli) and clarified that the Reds would always prioritize the long view.
If Liverpool spent big in one window, they would save in the next. Edwards was the master at drumming up fees for players on the periphery of his team — think Jordan Ibe, Dominic Solanke, Danny Ward and others.
Every sale seemed like a puzzle piece for a bigger move, with the most obvious example being Coutinho's January 2018 sale, which raised funds for Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker.
This came after a masterful 12-month saga of slowly hiking up Coutinho's transfer value: signing him to a new contract, letting him get off to a big start to the season, and waiting for Barcelona to become desperate. The £105m initial payment plus £36m in add-ons could have been half that had Edwards acted rashly.
In 2025, Edwards and his team acted rashly. Sure, it's hard to say his team could have gotten much more than the fees he recouped for Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez and Jarell Quansah.
The move for Isak — after Liverpool already signed talented French striker Hugo Ekitike — signaled a departure from the Reds' previous transfer strategy.
Would this move have been made before? You could argue that Ryan Gravenberch was a signing at excess: Liverpool already signed Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, and Wataru Endo in a complete remake of the midfield.
Except, Gravenberch cost €40.00 million. Isak cost more than three times that. It's one thing to make a low-cost gamble. It's another thing to do it multiple times in the same window.
The 2025 summer Reds transfer window marked a departure from the prudence most Liverpool fans came to expect from the club. It made the club Chelsea, a cesspit of rash decisions and constant churn.
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