With the mud now settled after a outstanding summer season switch window for Liverpool, they know they are going to be pressured to attend for Marc Guehi. However it’s a scenario they will afford.
The circumstances round Crystal Palace‘s U-turn on a deal for Guehi are as farcical as not checking their emails as UEFA reminded them of essential guidelines round their participation within the Europa League.
Palace missed the deadline to get their affairs so as relating to multi-club possession as these reminders had been despatched to a generic tackle: [email protected].
When it got here to the ultimate hours of the summer season switch window, with a £35 million charge reluctantly agreed for the sale of their captain, chairman Steve Parish was allegedly unreachable as he attended a health class in Soho.
The insistence of supervisor Oliver Glasner, who’s claimed to have threatened resignation if Guehi left, led to a last-hour resolution to drag out of the deal.
Guehi was left livid, having believed he was cleared to affix the Premier League champions, whereas Palace at the moment are going through the conundrum of an unsettled captain and a supervisor who’s clearly not absolutely dedicated past the yr remaining on his contract.
Palace have strengthened Liverpool’s bargaining energy
Each Glasner and Guehi’s offers expire on the identical time: because it stands, on July 1, 2026 they are going to be free to start new employment.
That makes the choice to maintain the defender all of the extra complicated, although Glasner was rightly adamant that he couldn’t depart if Palace weren’t able to signal an enough substitute.
Although the uncertainty over which European competitors they’d enter this season clearly clouded the panorama, Palace had lengthy sufficient to not solely acknowledge Guehi’s want to affix Liverpool but in addition to establish and recruit his successor.
Now they’re pressured to muddle by way of a busier-than-ever marketing campaign not figuring out if they will depend on the dedication of certainly one of their most necessary gamers.
Liverpool, in the meantime, could be secure within the information that Guehi wished them and solely them, and that his market worth will solely diminish within the months to come back.
They might feasibly return to the desk in January, seemingly for a decreased charge, however these within the Anfield hierarchy can even remember that, as long as they continue to be assured in his dedication, they may merely signal him at no cost subsequent summer season.
For a lot of, Guehi would have been seen as a luxurious signing in the interim, given the standard already in Arne Slot‘s centre-back ranks.
Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate had been probably the greatest pairings in Europe final season and that’s unlikely to vary regardless of the Frenchman’s early-season wobble, whereas Joe Gomez stayed past the deadline to supply a dependable choice when match.
However it’s Liverpool’s preliminary £26 million transfer for Italian teenager Giovanni Leoni earlier in the summertime which actually settles the nerves.
Liverpool’s religion in Leoni
Such is the assumption within the 18-year-old – who like Guehi was minded to show down advances from different high golf equipment as he prioritised Anfield – that solutions of a mortgage again to Parma had been instantly dominated out.
Leoni is but to characteristic for Slot’s aspect and was omitted of the squad for the 1-0 win over Arsenal, however he’s thought-about a real first-team choice and can be anticipated to supply competitors to the established order because the season goes on.
With Gomez denied a transfer to AC Milan on deadline day as there was deemed not sufficient time to finalise, Slot might have been left to work with 5 senior centre-backs if Guehi had joined.
The phrase luxurious is clearly not a destructive one, however the head coach might have discovered it trickier to maintain all three of Guehi, Leoni and Gomez blissful behind the first-choice partnership of Van Dijk and Konate.
Furthermore, the Dutchman was already comfy figuring out that he could also be required to show to certainly one of Wataru Endo, Ryan Gravenberch or Andy Robertson as centre-back choices in an emergency.
That scenario is prone to change if Guehi arrives both in January or subsequent summer season, with Liverpool conscious of Gomez’s willingness to pursue alternatives elsewhere and hopefully having extra readability by then over Konate’s personal future.
Subsequent summer season is the main focus
Like Guehi, Konate has now entered the ultimate yr of his contract, and although he’s much less equivocal over leaving there aren’t any ensures the Frenchman will put pen to paper as talks rumble on and Actual Madrid‘s curiosity looms.
It might be that Liverpool impose a deadline of kinds on Konate’s resolution, figuring out they may successfully change him with Palace’s No. 6.
However there can even be a want to incorporate each in Slot’s squad for years to come back, notably as Van Dijk’s new deal solely runs to 2027, by which level he can be nearly 36.
Subsequent summer season is admittedly the purpose by which Liverpool want to usher in one other top-level centre-back, and the plain alternative in that regard stays Guehi – a participant who might each companion Van Dijk and act as his long-term successor.
Regardless of the frustrations of deadline day, the Premier League champions will not be the losers of Monday’s deadlock. In actuality, Palace are.
By forcing Guehi to remain for not less than one other 4 months they haven’t solely risked additional instability in a season by which they need to have been aiming for progress underneath their most achieved supervisor in years.
They’ve additionally considerably weakened their hand with regards to a possible sale in January which, for a membership working on tremendous margins, damages their probabilities of touchdown the substitute they clearly want.
