Liverpool chairman Tom Werner has acknowledged the club did not set out to sign both Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 at the same time this summer. The club made clear they would only re-enter talks for Isak if Newcastle indicated a willingness to negotiate. It was only on the final day of the summer transfer window that the Swede\u2019s \u00a3125 million move to Anfield was completed.<\/p>\n
Werner told the It\u2019s Called Soccer podcast that, while the Isak situation lingered, Liverpool felt comfortable advancing with Ekitik\u00e9 as their striker signing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Newcastle situation, obviously their club needed to find a replacement,\u201d Werner explained. \u201cWe thought we had a terrific financial offer for them, but he did have a contract with them that lasted for three more years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess our feeling was we had signed Ekitik\u00e9 to be a striker and we felt if it works, then that would be great, and if it doesn\u2019t work, there\u2019ll be another option at some point down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closing day of the window also saw Liverpool pursue Crystal Palace defender Marc Gu\u00e9hi. A \u00a335 million agreement was reported and Gu\u00e9hi was given permission to undergo a medical, but Palace withdrew from the deal late on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know any more than the news media,\u201d Werner continued. \u201cI thought we were going to get the defender from Crystal Palace ! But I understood. Their club started [the season] very well, and their chairman, my counterpart, said, \u2018You know what, we can\u2019t afford\u2014whatever that means\u2014to lose him\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Ekitik\u00e9, Isak and Florian Wirtz among their headline additions, Liverpool completed what Werner described as the most expensive transfer window in history. He defended the spending as part of an effort to retain the Premier League title and to refresh a squad that had won before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact of the matter is it\u2019s going to be very difficult,\u201d he said. \u201cAs much as all the pundits are saying we are going to win the league this year, you can see from our first four matches how competitive the league is. We have been resilient, we have been fortunate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing I have learned, and we are relatively humble and modest about this, is we were very enthusiastic about changing the squad because it\u2019s very difficult to repeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a great intention to bring in new players, obviously to get better. As much as it has been talked about how much our spend was this year, we have been able to spend to the degree that we did so because we also sold a lot of players.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most encouraging things about that is we haven\u2019t clicked yet and I don\u2019t expect us to click right now. I do think part of what we have learned is that you can\u2019t just bring the same squad back. You need to bring in a new energy and new ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Werner says Liverpool were content with Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 while Alexander Isak stayed uncertain. In 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969],"tags":[195,938],"class_list":["post-2901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-alexander-isak","tag-deadline-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}