Liverpool could confirm Champions League point by beating Newcastle to second transfer

Liverpool did not make the Champions League places this season. It would clearly have been beneficial but Jürgen Klopp’s side is in a good place to kick on in 2023/24.

Liverpool knew that a big reset was coming this summer regardless of whether Jürgen Klopp’s side squeezed into the Champions League places or not — ultimately, the Reds finished fifth.

With multiple players including James Milner out of contract and moving on, there was always going to be a turnover of playing staff, giving Klopp the chance to refresh and bring in new ideas and younger legs.

Alexis Mac Allister represented an excellent start to the summer transfer window for Liverpool, arriving from Brighton. This weekend, its second addition, Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig, was confirmed as well.

Liverpool clearly underperformed last season, but there is no reason to think that the Reds cannot dramatically improve with players added to the squad of this sort of caliber.

Of course, Liverpool has spent less than some of its rivals in the Premier League — and many more deals will get done across the division before the new season begins — but the quality that has been added to date is significant.

With every player fit and performing to expectation, Liverpool already has a better squad than at least two of the teams that finished ahead of the Reds last time out.

Newcastle United will continue to spend big, having added Sandro Tonali for a fee of $76m (£61m/€70m) this week — the same amount, incidentally, that Liverpool splashed on Szoboszlai.

But Newcastle, according to Sky Sports, was also in for the Hungarian. The player, though, wanted to sign for Liverpool and therefore the Magpies left the race to focus on other targets.

Now, with Szoboszlai gone, Newcastle is looking at another player Liverpool admires, Italian journalist Rudy Galletti reports, in 22-year-old Nice midfielder Khéphren Thuram, who has just been knocked out of the U21 European Championships with France.

It remains to be seen whether or not Liverpool does sign another midfielder, or even if it does, whether Thuram would be the right profile with Mac Allister and Szoboszlai capable of filling the more advanced attacking midfield roles.

But should Liverpool beat Newcastle to that signing as well — the player picking the Reds over a move to the North East, if it came down to that, is hardly unrealistic — that would further underline the point about where each club stands in the pecking order.