Manchester City stopped Liverpool from completing £103million transfer that would have been signing of the summer

Erling Haaland got his Premier League account underway by scoring twice on his debut for Manchester City against West Ham United.

The Norwegian is going to be an incredible source of goals for Manchester City this season and his competition with Darwin Nunez to see who is the higher scoring forward in the league is shaping up already.

The Uruguayan striker scored for Liverpool on his own debut against Fulham but was unable to inspire a comeback from the bench as the game finished 2-2.

It's frustrating that two points were dropped in the first game of the season as many of last season's most worrying concerns were on display.

Injuries in midfield, lack of incisive passing through the middle of the park, drawing away from home against lower half teams.

Fulham won the Championship last season but it would still be an amazing achievement from Marco Silva's men if they finished above midtable.

Yet, it was the newly promoted London outfit that took the game to Liverpool with Jurgen Klopp's men struggling to find the answer and didn't lead the game at any point with equalisers from Nunez and Mohamed Salah rescuing a point.

There were several bright moments that have filled fans with some confidence heading into the two consecutive Monday night games against Crystal Palace and Manchester United.

Two extremely trick tests for the Reds.

The chemistry between Nunez and Salah looks good already and if they can include Luis Diaz and become a tight-knit forward trio, Liverpool will look very dangerous.

But with Thiago, Curtis Jones and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain ruled out, Klopp needs to find an answer to what his current best midfield trio is and stick with it either until Thiago or is back or if a new midfield signing is made.

Jude Bellingham would be the answer to Liverpool's problems but signing him this month is virtually impossible. Although I do believe that every club has a price they will sell a player at.

The Athletic reports Dortmund will only sell Bellingham for £103M but that would be astronomically more to let him go this month.

The Reds are in talks to sign him but the earliest he could join is in January but it's more likely that he would join in the summer of 2023.

Clubs around Europe understand very well that Borussia Dortmund will not sell another key player this summer in line with their one-per-summer transfer policy on sanctioning summer exits.

In a cruel twist of fate, Manchester City are responsible for Liverpool not signing their no.1 transfer target.

Erling Haaland joined the Premier League champions for £51M although the true cost of his move to the Etihad is closer to £294M (€350M) when wages, agent fees and bonuses are factored in.

But with Dortmund selling Haaland, any interest in Bellingham this summer becomes obsolete.

Anfield Central understands that heading into this summer, Julian Ward's top priority was to sign Jude Bellingham but the club understood that he was not for sale.

So attention was turned to Aurelien Tchouameni with the internal belief at Liverpool that there is need to improve their midfield options.

However, since Real Madrid bullied their way to the 22-year-old's signature, Ward and co. have not been able to find an ideal target and so the stance remains that unless the right opportunity presents itself like it did with Luis Diaz in January, Bellingham will remain the club's long term target.