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The prevailing narrative as Liverpool sat top of the Premier League table after a victory against Chelsea in Gameweek 8 was that while Liverpool’s legendary manager had just departed, they had nonetheless retained their “world-class stars”, such as Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Hence it was unsurprising that Liverpool have continued to do well and challenge for the league title. The reactions to Liverpool’s smooth-sailing success were more of bland approval or casual dismissiveness rather than adulation or shock. 

But that is a disingenuous ex-post interpretation. Such a perspective is a rationalisation that conveniently ignores the pessimism surrounding Liverpool at the start. No more than two months prior, at the dawn of the new season, the sentiment about post-Klopp Liverpool was far from optimistic. The general consensus predicted a turbulent transition period, and expectations from fans were to be tempered. More hard-boiled rival fans were envisioning a season of spiralling collapse.  

We can examine the evidence in the form of pundits’ predictions. Pundits as a whole have never been the bastion of judicious opinion, but they are an excellent barometer of general sentiment since their job consists largely of parroting the prevailing zeitgeist. Thirty pundits from the BBC predicted the Premier League top 4 before the start of the season. With hindsight, we can see how staggeringly off the mark they were. (Another interesting observation is that pundits almost always buy into the same few mainstream narratives.) Notably, only two out of the thirty “experts” foresaw Liverpool finishing above third, and none thought Liverpool could finish top. Roy Keane, for instance, non-partisan and discerning as always, believed that Liverpool will hardly make the top 4 given their lack of signings. And the ever-impartial Gary Neville concurred.  

Consider the stunning paucity of reinforcements, a condition that Keane had deemed sufficient for a Liverpool crumbling. What other elite club in the world appoints a new manager and then provides him with effectively zero meaningful additions in the first two transfer windows? Some teams like Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea break the bank even during periods of financial constriction. This is not a case of Slot rejecting new players –  what manager would? – he has been mum on the issue as managers suffer severe repercussions to their job security and reputation if they publicly lambast their board or owners (just ask Roberto De Zerbi or Thomas Tuchel).  

Liverpool’s owners have long been reactive rather than pre-emptive in succession planning. This is exactly the hallmark of parsimonious ownership. For instance, van Dijk and Alisson were finally purchased after years of Liverpool being plagued by abysmal capitulations at the back. Even with such key signings, Liverpool have tended to dither in the market and prolong negotiations. Lavish spenders like Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea often close deals very swiftly as they are simply willing to pay more.  

The failure to replace key players is glaring. The departure of a great servant in Joel Matip has not been met with a centre-back signing, nor has Andrew Robertson’s precipitous decline prompted a purchase for that position. Particularly glaring is also the fact that Liverpool are the only “Big 6” team currently without a left-footed centre-back, and they have not had one for years. In the market, left-footed centre-backs command a premium because they come in lower supply, and angles are crucial to build-up play. Liverpool’s left-footed centre-backs since 2015 are Mamadou Sakho, Ragnar Klavan and Ben Davies. Manchester City have spent around a combined 200M on Aymeric Laporte, Josko Gvardiol and Nathan Ake. Arsenal broke the bank for Riccardo Calafiori despite already being superbly blessed in defence. Chelsea have Levi Colwill and Benoît Badiashile; Manchester United have Lisandro Martinez; Tottenham have Micky van de Ven. We may even extend this further. Aston Villa have Pau Torres and Tyrone Mings; Nottingham Forest have Murillo; Newcastle have Dan Burn; Bournemouth have Marcos Senesi. Liverpool are a stark outlier.  

When a football club refrains from buying players, it loses out on much more than the services of those would-be players. Fewer signings means reduced competition for spots in the team which could affect the entire group’s motivation levels. Next, it limits squad depth, spreading the aggregate physical load over a smaller set of players. Third, it reduces the range of viable strategic options, constraining tactical flexibility, because whatever groundbreaking tactics a manager may have can only be implemented with the requisite skills available in the squad. In this way, the totality of the effects of new players is greater than the sum of the effects of individual signings. But over the last 5 years, Liverpool are tenth in the Premier League table for net transfer spend, trailing all the other Big 6 clubs, plus Newcastle, West Ham, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Liverpool have been deficient in reaping these benefits for multiple seasons running. Underinvestment has been chronic, not one-off.  

Of course, we are not forgetting Federico Chiesa. As of the time of writing, the Italian has played less than a half’s worth of minutes cumulatively in the league, and is probably not yet up to full fitness even at this stage of the season. He remains a non-factor in Liverpool’s campaign.  

Granted, Liverpool have been fortuitous in that the best player in the world, Rodri of the defending champions Manchester City suffered a long-term injury early in the season. Between Rodri’s injury in September and the signing of Nico González, Pep Guardiola’s team suffered a series of debilitating defeats, which made a title challenge virtually impossible by December. But then, now seeing the indispensability of a defensive midfielder to even a supremely consistent and dominant team like Manchester City, this further strengthens the case for Liverpool’s overachievement.  

Recall that even now, three years on from when it was apparent that Fabinho could no longer play at this level, Liverpool are still without a well-defined central defensive midfielder. In recent times Liverpool’s direct rivals have spent heavily on this position, signing players like Manuel Ugarte, Moisés Caicedo, Roméo Lavia, Declan Rice, González, Jorginho, Sandro Tonali and Amadou Onana. Sure, Liverpool have Wataru Endo. But as good as Endo has been in closing out games where Liverpool have a secure lead, he clearly does not command the trust of the manager for a bigger role and, in all honesty, does not have the quality to make the matchday squads of Liverpool’s major rivals. In the first place, he was a panic buy on the cheap, in keeping with the common practice of Liverpool’s owners.  

Ryan Gravenberch has been a revelation–surging from bit-part bench player to one of the best midfielders this season–but one gets the feeling that Gravenberch’s role as a quasi-defensive midfielder is but a provisional improvisation that is neither the original ideal plan nor a long-term solution. Why else would Liverpool have hotly pursued a specialist midfield anchor in Martin Zubimendi, and Lavia the summer before? 

In sum, in order to properly evaluate Liverpool’s achievements, we must first recognise the large gap between ex-ante sentiments about how their season would transpire, and ex-post retrospective opinion. As the fashionable narrative shifts gradually and continually throughout the season, initial expectations can fade from memory and cause retrospective distortions in our judgement. What was initially perceived as a tumultuous transition compounded by the lack of new arrivals has now been reframed as a continuation of success that was expected from the outset. But we shall not let ourselves be hoodwinked by this attempt at a rewriting of history, and accordingly discern how for Liverpool have exceeded pessimistic forecasts and the hard realities of limited resources.  

One narrative, however, has exhibited unyielding constancy, permeating discussions since the start of the season. The still-unresolved contract situation of van Dijk, Salah and Alexander-Arnold. Who knows what destabilising effects this may have had in the background. This comports with our theme about the pernicious frugality of Liverpool’s owners and adds another dimension to our case for Liverpool’s overachievement.  

In sport, financial muscle ultimately prevails in the long run. If Liverpool are to build upon the success of this season and prevent the excruciatingly narrow misses on silverware that marred Klopp’s era, investment comparable to its rivals is imperative. Otherwise, this season could be the exception rather than the new rule.