Liverpool FC transfer news expert Neil Jones has provided his insight into historic links between the Reds and Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappe down the years.
Writing in his exclusive CaughtOffside column on Substack, Jones explained that he feels most of the noise about Mbappe and a possible move to Liverpool was mostly fan-led, with supporters reacting to one or two things the player said in interviews about the club.
Realistically, Liverpool have never looked likely to be able to afford Mbappe in his time at PSG, and the best chance the club had to sign him was when he was still a teenager at Monaco, according to Jones.
Even then, however, the France international’s explosive form quickly earned him a big move to PSG, and it’s debatable if Jurgen Klopp would even do well working with a superstar like that in his squad.
Jones says that doesn’t tend to be the way Klopp operates, so it would be a big challenge for the German tactician to get the best out of Mbappe, even if he is perhaps also the kind of talent you’d make an exception for.
“Kylian Mbappe is a name we’ve often seen linked with Liverpool in recent times, but I can say now that there’s no chance of Liverpool signing him any time soon. If you look at the money he’s going to be moving for and how much he’d be earning, it’s just not realistic,” Jones said.
“The truth is that the best chance Liverpool had of signing Mbappe was when he was still a teenager at Monaco. He burst onto the scene there in spectacular style, and possibly by establishing himself so quickly it cost Liverpool because he very quickly got that big move to PSG in 2017 after a great season with Monaco in the Champions League. I think that was the moment when Liverpool had half a chance of signing him, but then again they ended up signing Mohamed Salah that same summer, so you can argue that it didn’t really cost Liverpool much because they instead signed one of their best ever players who went on to win all sorts of major trophies.
“A lot of the talk about Mbappe and Liverpool has been fan-led, really. There have been little bits and pieces in the press here and there, with the player speaking highly of the club, including calling them “a machine” in an interview a few years back, and often choosing to play as them on FIFA. I think he himself might also have admitted about a year ago that he had some talks with Liverpool, but nothing advanced, and that, again, the most realistic time for him to have moved there would’ve been when he was at Monaco.
“Unless something huge changes in terms of who owns Liverpool and what their financial power is in the future, then I think their chances of signing Mbappe are very slim. There’s maybe a vague history there, but nothing much to get too excited about.
“It’s a hypothetical, but it would also be interesting to ask Jurgen Klopp about how he’d deal with having a superstar name like Mbappe in his dressing room. You look at the values he’s always instilled at Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund, it’s all about the team, the collective, and humility. Mbappe is one of, if not the best footballer in the world at the moment, so it would be a huge question. Of course, there are certain players, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and I’m sure Mbappe and Erling Haaland as well, that you make an exception for.
“It would also be interesting to know if all this noise that seems to follow Mbappe is down to him or down to the environment at PSG. Would he be different at a better-run, stable, happy, cohesive club? Still, I think it would be perhaps Klopp’s biggest challenge to fit in someone with such status into a team that revolves so much about putting ego to one side and doing what’s best for the team.”