The Athletic has live coverage of the Marseille vs Liverpool match.
“I am now at the best club in England.”
For Liverpool supporters, those nine words will smart after Marc Guehi was officially unveiled as a Manchester City player on Monday.
Some 140 days earlier, the England international centre-back had been on the brink of joining Arne Slot’s Premier League champions after a £35million ($47m at the current rate) deal was struck with Crystal Palace.
With personal terms already agreed, Guehi was actually lying in a scanner at a London clinic, as part of his Liverpool medical, on deadline day in early September when Palace chairman Steve Parish pulled the plug. With the Selhurst Park club’s manager Oliver Glasner vehemently opposed to the sale given their squad’s lack of defensive cover, Parish U-turned and vowed to keep Guehi for the final season of his contract rather than cash in.
At the time, it appeared that Guehi’s move to Anfield had simply been delayed rather than shelved. He seemingly had his heart set on Anfield and for Liverpool, the prospect of signing him as a free agent was an attractive one. They were prepared to wait a year.
However, now those hopes lie in tatters with Guehi joining City for an initial figure of £20million, which will be inflated by additional fees. Guehi has signed a five-and-a-half-year contract.
The sight of a transfer target being lost to a direct domestic rival will infuriate a section of Liverpool’s fanbase, and it’s easy to understand the sentiment. There was a lot to like about the prospect of getting Guehi on board. He’s 25, Premier League-proven, homegrown and a leader.
Liverpool aren’t blessed with defensive options right now, having lost both Giovanni Leoni and Conor Bradley to season-ending knee injuries in September and early January, respectively. They remain hugely reliant on the fitness of captain Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, who have both started all 22 top-flight games this season. Joe Gomez is the only senior centre-back they have in reserve, and he has a history of fitness issues. Gomez will also be required to provide cover at right-back in the coming months.
Virgil van Dijk has been a Premier League ever-present for Liverpool this season at age 34 (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Given that Konate’s form has been patchy and his future beyond this season remains uncertain with no breakthrough in talks over a new contract to replace the one that expires in June, bringing in Guehi this month would have strengthened a key area of the squad.
But when it recently became clear that Palace were prepared to sell their captain at midseason, Liverpool opted not to rival City for his signature. To understand why, you have to go back to the events of last summer.
Rewind six months and Liverpool’s priority in that window was to sign a talented young centre-back who had senior experience but also a high ceiling in terms of further development. They had previously shown interest in Chelsea’s Levi Colwill, Leny Yoro, before his summer 2024 move from Lille to Manchester United, and Dean Huijsen, who moved from Bournemouth to Real Madrid in June.
Liverpool got what they wanted with teenager Leoni arriving from Parma for an initial fee of £26m. He effectively replaced Jarell Quansah, who had been sold to Bayer Leverkusen.
Given his contract situation, Guehi was viewed as a decent market opportunity if Palace agreed to sell and if the price wasn’t prohibitive. Liverpool were only given encouragement by Palace that a deal could be done after the Community Shield between the clubs at Wembley in August.
Marc Guehi led Palace to victory against Liverpool in the Community Shield last August (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Initially, last season’s FA Cup winners were holding out for more than £35m but with no other suitors to drive up the price, they ended up accepting that figure, plus a 10 per cent sell-on clause, before the late drama on deadline day when the transfer collapsed. It meant that the long-serving Gomez, who had attracted interest from Brighton & Hove Albion and Milan, ended up staying put.
Senior Anfield figures were surprised and disappointed but always regarded signing Guehi as a bonus rather than a necessity. They were also adamant that they wouldn’t attempt to revive the deal in the winter window. Instead, as detailed above, they hoped to get him for nothing once his contract expired at the end of this season. The cruel blow of losing Leoni to a torn anterior cruciate ligament injury in his left knee on his debut against Southampton in the Carabao Cup didn’t alter their strategy.
Liverpool hadn’t expected Guehi to be available this month, given the importance Palace had previously placed on keeping him until the campaign concludes in May, and the fact that the player was already considering lucrative offers for a summer transfer as a free agent.
When the landscape shifted with City making their move, Liverpool established what it would take financially and decided the numbers just didn’t add up. It seems they weren’t the only ones to reach that conclusion, given that Bayern Munich and Arsenal also left the way clear for City, who reacted after losing first-choice defenders Josko Gvardiol and Ruben Dias to injuries in recent weeks.
Talk of Guehi only costing £20m is disingenuous. Sources familiar with the deal, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that City paid Guehi’s agents a significant commission and that the player’s wage demands were understood to be around £300,000 per week. Over the course of a five-and-a-half year contract that represents an outlay on salary alone of £85.8m. (City say Guehi’s wages are significantly lower than that).
Liverpool didn’t view that overall package as a smart market opportunity, given the club’s self-sustaining business model. It would have proved problematic in terms of their wage structure at a time when sporting director Richard Hughes is trying to negotiate a number of contract renewals.
The reality is that if Guehi had really wanted to play for Liverpool, he could have just sat tight until the summer. Instead, his head was turned by the opportunity and the riches on offer at City.
He was never going to be a panacea for the Merseyside club’s current ills, but he would have provided a real injection of quality in a department where Slot is worryingly light.
When you take the emotion out of it and look at the numbers, there’s logic behind Liverpool’s decision not to rival City for Guehi’s services.
However, it’s also a gamble given what one more defensive injury could do to their chances of salvaging something from this season.