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Last September, had you asked any Premier League fans which club has ‘won’ the recent transfer window, the answer would have been almost unanimous.
Then-reigning champions Liverpool spent more than £250 million on a raft of exciting signings, including strikers Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike, midfield playmaker Florian Wirtz and full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez.
Huge investment into a champion squad looked to have set the Reds on the path to a title defence.
‘I didn't know much about Hugo Ekitike, but he turned out to be probably the best one’ Michael Owen on a rare bright spark in Liverpool’s business last summer
Yet nine months on, the picture looks very different. Liverpool have had a season to forget, with their title hopes going up in smoke in the autumn and Champions League qualification still in the balance with one game left to play.
Michael Owen believes mistakes were made.
“Although the signings overall now appear to have been disappointing, it's hard to analyse whether that's been because of the quality or tactics or the injuries or whatever,” Owen tells FourFourTwo on behalf of World Cup offers from top betting sites.
“On the face of it, I was absolutely thrilled when they bought Florian Wirtz, I was thrilled when they bought Isak. I was excited, but didn't know much about Ekitike, but he turned out to be probably the best.
“I must admit, I thought Milos Kerkez was a very good signing, but now I'm not thinking that was not a good signing. There's been obviously Giorgi Marmadashvili, there's been there's been other signings as well, but I think of those big money signings, obviously Isak has had a terrible bit of fortune, he missed his preseason, he struggled a little bit when he came back in and when he was then starting to show a bit, and actually scored a goal or two, he’s sidelined again.
“Now, when he comes back, anybody expecting him to be brilliant, right away or within the next couple of months, will be sadly mistaken. You're probably going to have that frustrating period of little injuries, little niggles, struggling for form, as he gets back to full fitness. So it might be, you know, that we don't see the best of him for a good while.
“Ekitike’s situation, obviously, is an absolute nightmare. That's a horrific injury, and I can't imagine he's going to be coming back too long before Christmas.”
Yet Owen still believes some of those signings will come good and leave a lasting legacy at Anfield.
“Yeah, I'm still excited by those signings,” he says. “No one can say Wirtz is not a great player, or Isak, or Ekitike, for that matter – there's some seriously talented footballers in that squad. It's just a question of obviously getting them all playing and playing well together. So, a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest.
“I'm nervous about Jeremie Frimpong – I don't know what Frimpong is. Obviously, he's not really a right back. But I would say he is good to have in the squad, and you can, against a lesser team, probably get away with him playing it right back. You can put him as a right-sided attacking player as well. So I'm not against him, even though he's also picked up a lot of injuries already. So there's a few question marks, but overall the one that I'm not that keen on, and I'm not that keen on, you know, going forward is probably Kerkez.”
