Liverpool legend Mark Lawrenson has predicted that as many as five senior players could depart Anfield before the start of next season – as he forecast a “mad summer” of transfer activity on Merseyside.
The Reds currently boast a 12-point lead at the Premier League summit over nearest challengers Arsenal after an incredible showing in the top flight in Arne Slot’s first campaign in the hotseat. With Liverpool in an overwhelmingly strong position to clinch a second league title in 35 years, it would be unfathomable that the 19-time winners would surrender that advantage in the remaining nine games of the term.
However, defeats against PSG and Newcastle United in the Champions League last-16 and Carabao Cup final, respectively, abruptly ended hopes of a historic treble this month. Despite glory potentially awaiting Slot in the league, the uncertainty over the futures of stalwarts Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold also continues to dominate the discourse among supporters as the season approaches its business end.
All three players have entered the final months of their deals at Anfield, meaning that they will be free to depart the club for nothing at the end of the campaign unless they renew their contracts. In addition to the speculation surrounding the trio, recent defeats have have led pundits such as Jamie Carragher to suggest that the Merseysiders could benefit from reinforcements ahead of next season.
With all of this considered, former Reds mainstay Lawrenson is convinced that his old club could be set for a busy summer in the transfer market. Predicting that any one of forwards Darwin Nunez, Federico Chiesa and Diogo Jota also could be heading for the exit door, he exclusively told Liverpool.com that manager Slot potentially has a “difficult” job on his hands in the coming months.
He explained: “Listen, we might lose three in terms of contractual [departures] and then if you talk about getting rid of Nunez, Chiesa – because he’s injury prone – Jota, who has turned into some one injury prone, Arne Slot’s job has suddenly become really difficult unless he knows something behind the scenes.
“It’s perfectly possible that they’re saying to him ‘look, we’ve got this sorted, so don’t worry about it’. If not, it could be five players out – I mean, that’s half the team. Then it would be difficult.”
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Suggesting that additions could be required in defensive areas this summer too, he continued: “Regardless of what happens, we need another center-back and obviously we’ll need another right back, I would have thought. We probably need another left back. Apart from that, obviously the strikers.
“So you’re probably talking – in an ideal world – five new players. I mean, that can be offset by sales but I think that the last couple of months we’ve been looking at it saying ‘do you think his legs have gone? Do you think this guy’s good enough to come in and play semi-regularly? Are we strong enough at the back?’ All of those things.”
“So it’s gone from it looking like a fantastic job to have for Arne Slot to ‘show us what you’re made of this summer’,” he then acknowledged, in a telling admission. Lawrenson added: “I mean, I don’t think he’ll be going on a summer holiday will he?”
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The former Match of the Day analyst, who won five league titles and one European Cup at Anfield, also insisted that the challenge will only get harder for Liverpool next season if they do secure the top flight crown. Lawrenson is convinced that the Reds’ perennial rivals will strengthen their squads this summer.
“It’s tougher, the next year’s tougher because team’s want to beat you straight away,” he asserted. “The way the league is at the moment, if you take away the bottom three and think about the remaining 17, all these teams from 16th to 8th all get a great big load of money again [in summer]. They get better players and it’s more difficult for the teams at the top to roll them over.
“But if you win it once, and we’ve not won it by default, we’ve won it because we’ve got the best team, it all depends on what team we have next season. City will come back, there’s no doubt about that, obviously Arsenal.”
Lawrenson added: “If we’re still messing around trying to get players in by the end of first transfer deadline, we might end up a few points behind. I would say this is the biggest season for Liverpool in a long time. We will win the league, there’s no doubt whatsoever – but then it’s like ‘wow’. Everyone uses the phrase ‘we’ve got to go again’ in terms of the players but the whole club has got to go again.”
