Liverpool feel that Romeo Lavia was not worth Southampton’s asking price this summer, but went for him anyway because they needed a signing in that position.
That’s according to LFC expert Neil Jones in his latest exclusive column for CaughtOffside, with the journalist stating that the Reds did not view Lavia as being worth £50million, and he’s now ended up joining Chelsea for slightly more than that.
Blues supporters surely won’t care as they’ve now beaten Liverpool to two top midfield talents in Lavia and Moises Caicedo, and it also leaves the Merseyside giants with plenty to do before the end of the summer transfer window.
Lavia may have been a tad over-priced, as have been many players in this current market, but Liverpool fans will surely be left a tad frustrated that their club didn’t do more to get this deal over the line ahead of a major top four rival.
“On top of the Caicedo news came another blow for Liverpool, with Romeo Lavia also bound for Chelsea,” Jones said. “This, in many ways, will hurt the Reds more. Not because he’s a better player – he most certainly is not – but because this is a deal that Liverpool could and should have had sewn up.
“Lavia has been on their radar for months, and they have had three bids rejected earlier this summer. Their reluctance to meet Southampton’s asking price, which has always been £50m, has cost them, as has their dramatic pivot towards Caicedo last week.
“And what this also does is bring Liverpool’s policy of ‘seeking value’ into sharp focus. They didn’t believe Lavia was worth £50m, which is fine. I actually agree. He isn’t. But in the end, they were willing to pay it because they needed a player, and they were still not able to get him.
“Now, when they switch their attentions elsewhere, they have only two-and-a-bit weeks to get someone in, and everyone knows they have money to spend. How likely are they to find value now?”
I am angry about the way LFC have gone about transfers in the last few years, especially when every man and his dog have been praising them. A few good signings dose not detract from the fact that we kept hold of injury prone, money draining people like sturridge, lallana, keita, ox, shaquri, matip for far too long just so they didn’t need to spend money” due to squad size” Oh also keeping hold of lesser players like gomez and phillips??? I do feel a bit sorry for both Caicedo and lavia. We looked into caicedo before the start of last season, even them rumours came out that he was interested..no follow up… We now put in 3 stupid bids for Lavia, again rumours stated he was ready to join us then turn our backs on him for the sake of a few mil…only to go back and offer 10m more than what the original price was, no wonder he feels second choice. No matter what you think, whether 1st or 5th choice, Chelsea get the players…yes money…but they also make the players feel wanted and automatic starters even if they will mainly be bench warmers. I also feel sorry for Gallagher, he played really well against us and now will probably be forced out to recoup a few quid… take notice Lavia. Lets get rid of the Director of football and have Klopp deal with transfers, our coaching staff is good enough to support him. If we finish 6th will be a good season at this rate.
What about the recent story which has some credibility that Michael Edwards disagreed with the extensions of certain players contract including Henderson’s in 2021 and wanted to bring in new players but was overruled by Klopp. Perhaps Klopp has been the problem in the transfer business. There is a suspicion that Klopp is too loyal to 1st team players and not ruthlessness enough when it comes to replacing those that are not up to the mark. Perhaps we need to go back to the system where Klopp did not have 100% authority over transfers.