Liverpool wanted to sign Patson Daka this summer but, according to Fabrizio Romano, failure to move Xherdan Shaqiri and Divock Origi on prevented them from doing so.
The Zambian joined Leicester City instead for £23million before another target in the form of Donyell Malen slipped away as well, joining Borussia Dortmund.
Romano told the Here We Go podcast: “Liverpool this summer had a strategy: sell some players and eventually sign some players.
“If they sold Shaqiri or Origi in the first days of June they had a chance to sign Patson Daka because they were interested in Patson Daka. They never made an official bid but they had an interest in this striker from Salzburg.
“Then it collapsed because of timing on Shaqiri who was sold in August and Origi who is staying at the club. But Patson Daka was one of the names on the list for Liverpool.”
While many fans will have suspected this, it’s frustrating to receive confirmation that a player like Divock Origi, who offers virtually nothing to the Reds these days, prevented Jurgen Klopp from signing a player that would have improved the squad hugely.
Last season, Daka scored 34 goals and also assisted 12 for RB Salzburg and while he did so in the Austrian Bundesliga, he looked sharp on his Premier League debut for Leicester City against West Ham.
With Roberto Firmino and Takumi Minamino already picking up injuries just a few weeks into the new season, Liverpool not signing a forward late in the window could prove to be very costly.
While it would have been difficult to do so before deadline day, Liverpool had the opportunities, with Jeremy Doku a player that was willing to join the club but it seems his €50m price tag proved prohibitive.
The Merseysiders seem to have not learned their lesson after not replacing Dejan Lovren when the Croatian joined Zenit St. Petersburg. While he wasn’t a starter, neither was Xherdan Shaqiri but now Liverpool are a man light in attack.
Harvey Elliott appears to be Georginio Wijnaldum’s replacement in the middle of the park but after a summer in which all of Liverpool’s rivals spent over £100m, FSG’s frugality could prove fatal this season.
