FSG could drop hint over Liverpool transfer strategy with Ruben Amorim appointment

This week began with plenty of excitement from a Liverpool perspective after reports in Portugal and Germany claimed that Ruben Amorim had verbally agreed a deal to become the next Reds boss.

The 39-year-old Sporting CP boss emerged as a front-runner for the role as soon as it was revealed that Jurgen Klopp would be stepping down from his duties at the end of this season, with the links to the Portuguese only intensifying after another hotly-tipped candidate, Xabi Alonso, pledged his future to Bayer Leverkusen.

However, the reports were swiftly knocked down by various media outlets, with Liverpool sources adamant that no job offer had been made to any potential new boss, nor any kind of verbal agreement reached.

Amorim remains the red-hot favourite to land the role and take the reins from Klopp, with the search for a new boss the highest priority for Fenway Sports Group’s new CEO of Football, the returning Michael Edwards.

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Amorim makes sense for a number of reasons, not least for the fact that appointing a manager with such a CV and knowledge base of the Portuguese league and the player pathway that exists from South American football, through Portugal, and into the major European leagues.

FSG will be adding a new football club to its portfolio in the not-too-distant future. The Liverpool owners, with Edwards leading the search in his new role, are currently in the process of identifying a club to acquire, something that was pivotal to Edwards returning to the fold. In recent years FSG has looked at the Brazilian market, although Europe seems a more likely option for the plans for player development. Last month the Reds owners were linked with a swoop to buy French side Toulouse from FSG part-owners RedBird Capital Partners, although senior sources in the US have told the ECHO those rumours were ‘completely false’.

Under FSG, Liverpool have adopted a more prudent approach to the transfer market than some of their rivals. Over the last four years, up to and including the 2022/23 financial year, the Reds had a gross transfer spend of £368m, a sum less than all of their ‘big six’ rivals, as well as clubs including West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Aston Villa, and Newcastle United.

It has been a strategy that has been both lauded and derided, with those in favour believing it to show the steady hand in running the club in a sustainable way, where strategy makes a big difference, while those against see it as lacking ambition in comparison to their rivals, not making the most of the chance to really make a push for more silverware than has been achieved under the stewardship of the soon-to-be-departed Klopp.

Last summer, however, saw FSG break from tried and tested way of working when they made a shock £111m bid for then Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Moises Caicedo.

Chelsea had been courting the Ecuadorian, who cost just £4.5m when the Seagulls signed him from Independiente del Valle in his homeland in 2021, for some months and then had to act, raising their bid to £115m. Caicedo wanted the Chelsea move and that is how it played out.

FSG’s view on the transfer market and Liverpool is that they shouldn’t be buying at the high watermark, they should be finding this talent on the incline, much in the way that they did with Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Andrew Robertson, and others. Through greater analysis of data, which is now a staple of all clubs’ recruitment, the Reds were able to reduce as much risk as possible and see the upside more clearly.

The Caicedo affair was a chastening one for FSG, something of a public humiliation when they had appeared on course to shatter the British transfer record and do something that some fans had longed them to do - spend money.

But in the failure came the chance to rethink and reset. The signing of Wataru Endo from VfB Stuttgart was mocked by some rival fans after the Caicedo snub, but the Japanese 31-year-old has become an integral part of Klopp’s title-chasing side this season, while Caicedo has struggled in a misfiring Chelsea team.

Liverpool’s approach moving forward isn’t likely to see them enter into such major bidding wars again, with the return of Edwards and the focus on acquiring another club to aid recruitment and the player pathway to Anfield seen as a way to continue to find the marginal gains to keep them competing at the top year in, year out.

It is also important for player trading. Staff costs have risen 79% from £208m to £373m since 2018, while administrative expenses have increased by 70% over the same period.

Commercial revenues have risen significantly, and matchday revenue will rise in the coming seasons following the completion of the Anfield Road redevelopment, but while prize money from success and broadcasting revenues are lucrative, they can be volatile, and making profit from player trading is something that the club can have greater control over than those aspects.

Recruiting well from different territories, housing players in a European side where they can play the same style as the Reds, gain experience, earn valuable Governing Body Endorsement points to allow them to play in England, and see value growth are all important factors.

FSG have an interest in the Portuguese market, and the move for Amorim would make sense.

The Liverpool owners are set to appoint Benfica technical director Pedro Marques, a man with experience of multi-club models through a previous stint with Manchester City owners City Football Group. Marques is set to sit as part of the structure under Edwards, working as an FSG employee as opposed to a Liverpool one.

Portugal is seen as a market ripe with talent, and one where Liverpool wants to get a greater foothold. There is a well-travelled path from South America to Portugal and into the major European leagues, with that path having previously been walked by the Reds’ current stars Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez, while Portuguese Diogo Jota started his career with his local club, Pacos de Ferreira.

Its geographical location means that it is also a good landing spot for North African talent.

One of the things that FSG does extremely well is build strategy, and with those already hired, and those who may be hired, it is easy to see a thread appear of how they may want to approach the coming years, finding the likes of Caicedo earlier in the journey to avoid being caught up in the transfer market arms race.

FSG looked at both Atletico Mineiro and Cruzeiro as potential options for acquisition in recent years but opted not to make a move for either. They may look to Brazil again and find a South American base. But with European football the goal, and getting players to experience UEFA competition a significant boost to both the development of players and their chances of gaining the required GBE, a smaller market European league with a good chance of qualification for either the Europa League or Europa Conference League may appeal.

Either way, it is likely that the Portuguese pathway that has proven so fruitful for some of Europe’s major clubs, plays a role in the future direction of travel for the Reds’ recruitment policy.