{"id":435898,"date":"2025-09-19T11:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/435898\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:04:13","slug":"richard-hughes-breaks-silence-on-liverpool-summer-transfer-spending-you-have-to-detach-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/435898\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Hughes breaks silence on Liverpool summer transfer spending – ‘You have to detach yourself’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Hughes has spoken for the first time about Liverpool’s summer transfer spending<\/p>\n

11:41, 19 Sep 2025Updated 11:50, 19 Sep 2025<\/p>\n

\"RichardRichard Hughes sporting director of Liverpool FC(Image: Photo by Andrew Powell\/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Richard Hughes has stressed the importance of not thinking about transfer fees as he opened up on Liverpool\u2019s transfer strategy this summer. When it came to predicting who would be the big Premier League<\/a> spenders, few would have considered Liverpool<\/a>, but in the end, they spent \u00a3446m on new recruits.<\/p>\n

The outlay was the most ever spent by a Premier League club in a single window, eclipsing the \u00a3434.5m spent by Chelsea in the summer of 2023. Alexander Isak<\/a> joined for a record \u00a3125m, while Florian Wirtz<\/a>, for \u00a3116.5m, and Hugo Ekitike, for \u00a379m, also made the move to Anfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and Giovanni Leoni also joined the Premier League champions, as Arne Slot\u2019s<\/a> squad underwent a major overhaul.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Liverpool chairman Tom Werner explains FSG transfer decision and addresses Marc Guehi deal<\/a>\"\"\/<\/p>\n

OPINION<\/p>\n

\"AuthorIan Doyle<\/p>\n

And now, speaking publicly for the first time since Slot\u2019s first Liverpool press conference last summer, Hughes has explained why the club targeted the players they did, despite the huge fees involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs best you can, you have to detach yourself from what the transfer fee is likely to be,\u201d he told the IMG x RedBird Summit on Thursday via The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, the identification of the right player for the right system for the right head coach has a fair amount of importance, and I think this is not something that\u2019s necessarily new for the football club and its ownership.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at what was paid for Alisson Becker (\u00a366.8m in July 2018) and Virgil van Dijk<\/a> (\u00a375m in January 2018) in history and you equate that to what that would be in 2025 money, you\u2019re not far away from where you are with some of the fees that have been spent this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pay what we believe to be fair market value for a player based on age and based on necessity of that individual to fit into the squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the fullness of time, we hope that, instead of talking now about what a huge fee it is, it has been value for money for the football club whenever we\u2019re making that assessment in the future. And because of the ages of the players that we\u2019ve bought, we\u2019re confident that will end up being the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reds started the summer with a statement of intent by securing the services of the sought-after Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen in a package worth a then-British record \u00a3116m.<\/p>\n

Isak then followed on transfer deadline day<\/a> in a deal that could be worth \u00a3125m after a long, drawn-out saga that saw the forward essentially go on strike at Newcastle United in order to force through a move.<\/p>\n

And Hughes believes that Liverpool<\/a> have secured themselves two players who can stay at Anfield for many years to come.<\/p>\n

“That would be very much the hope and in buying a player young, you give yourself the ability for that to be the case,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also want to try and win now, and that\u2019s important as well, so I\u2019m not describing them as works in progress or anything like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are players who have already done a lot in their individual careers. We talk about Florian and Alex, but Milos, Jeremie and Hugo are players that have achieved a certain level in the game already.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Hughes has spoken for the first time about Liverpool’s summer transfer spending 11:41, 19 Sep 2025Updated 11:50,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,763,16727,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-435898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-liverpool-fc","13":"tag-richard-hughes","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115230637080690357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}