One transfer decision in 2017 altered Liverpool\u2019s next decade. Jurgen Klopp had tracked Julian Brandt during his time at Borussia Dortmund and viewed the Bayer Leverkusen midfielder as a clear target. Brandt had recorded 40 appearances and 12 goal contributions for Leverkusen that season.<\/p>\n
Those figures contrasted with Mohamed Salah\u2019s 31 goal contributions at Roma. Klopp hesitated to gamble on a player who underwhelmed at Chelsea just three seasons prior, and Liverpool\u2019s hierarchy ultimately persuaded him to back Salah instead of Brandt.<\/p>\n
Salah arrived on Merseyside with conviction. In his debut match for the Reds, Salah mustered a goal and an assist … and the rest is history. The 33-year-old, who will bid farewell to Anfield at the end of the 2025\u201326 season, went on to record over 250 goals for Liverpool, helping the team win two Premier League titles, the Champions League and six other trophies.<\/p>\n
Brandt stayed at Bayer Leverkusen until he joined Borussia Dortmund in 2019. Across seven seasons in a yellow shirt he made 300 appearances for BVB and scored 56 goals. He did not win a league title with either Leverkusen or Dortmund and lifted only two honors with Dortmund.<\/p>\n
Comparing any player\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 to Salah\u2019s record in the Premier League shows the scale of what Liverpool gained that summer. Still, the story underlines how narrow margins and managerial preference can shape a club\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Brandt is set to leave Borussia Dortmund as a free agent this summer after the club and player agreed not to extend his contract, which expires in June. Dortmund managing director Lars Ricken confirmed that decision. “There have already been a few reports, and it\u2019s simply that there were open talks and everyone agreed that the expiring contract wouldn\u2019t be extended.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 2017 transfer choice between Brandt and Salah altered Liverpool’s decade; revisiting the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,175,1163],"tags":[1216,1047],"class_list":["post-9719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-borussia-dortmund","category-liverpool","category-transfers","tag-250-goals","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719","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=9719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}