Premier League: How Liverpool’s superior transfer acumen enabled them to supplant Manchester City

Pep Guardiola may be the best manager in the world, and he may even have assembled the greatest team of all time, but Liverpool’s brilliant transfer strategy has exploited his greatest weakness.

Throughout his career, Guardiola has never really made an impression on the transfer market. Of course, he has bought some excellent players, but given the amount of money he has spent throughout his career, it would be strange if he had not achieved some masterstrokes along the way.

In Barcelona he went perhaps as badly in his career as ever. He may have been paralyzed by the poor configuration of the Catalan club, because they have hardly flourished in the market since his departure.

However, his signature move, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, turned out to be a huge waste of money, upset the team and cost Samuel Eto’o to go the other way. Dani Alves was an excellent buy, as were Javier Mascherano and David Villa, and Seydou Keita provided excellent value for money. Otherwise, the rest of your purchases were a waste.

His investment in Bayern Munich was also not convincing. His best acquisitions were all the central midfielders: Thiago Alcantara, Xabi Alonso and Arturo Vidal. But Mario Gotze failed to really impress, Medhi Benatia, Douglas Costa and Juan Bernat were costly mistakes.

However, it is in Manchester City where his waste has increased. With nearly unlimited funds, and given the great influence that comes with city owners knowing they have it almost entirely due to their financial capabilities, he has raced through player after player while trying to solve the puzzles in his head.

He has signed 21 senior players, although you could ask for more, and only Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte are undisputed successes. The excess of full-backs he has signed has highlighted both the difficulties of finding a world-class one available for transfer, and the way he uses the checkbook far more than perhaps such a brilliant coach should.

Compare that to Jurgen Klopp under Liverpool. With the exception of Ragnar Klavan and Loris Karius, all the players have been successful. Only Takumi Minamino can be dismissed from the discussion as he is slowly introduced to her, and maybe Naby Keita will move on if he doesn’t make it. But the successes are overwhelming: Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, Diogo Jota, Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Georginio Wijnaldum and Andy Robertson have become vital parts of the team. It is an astonishing success rate and probably surpasses any other club of similar stature in Europe.

Manchester City can take advantage of the game at the weekend, but when England’s two best teams meet, one of them has grown up with an intelligence and ruthlessness that Guardiola has never come close to matching. While Liverpool are far from being poor, they have leveled the playing field by identifying the best talent within their grasp and executing with hardly a mistake.

Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Naby Keita, Fabinho, Diogo Jota, Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Georginio Wijnaldum, Andy Robertson, Takumi Minamino, Loris Karius, Ragnar Klavan, Joel Matip.

Ruben Dias, Riyad Mahrez, Aymeric Laporte, Joao Cancelo, Rodri, Benjamin Mendy, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Leroy Sane, Bernardo Silva, Nathan Ake, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Ederson, Gabriel Jesus, Danilo, Ilkay Gundogan, Ferran Torres, Nolito, Claudio Bravo, Douglas Luiz, Angelino.

Keirrison, Henrique, Dmytro Chygrynskiy, Alexander Hleb, Martin Caceres, Ibrahimo Affelay, Maxwell, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Jose Manuel Pinto, Cesc Fábregas, Alexis Sanchez, Seydou Keita, Javier Mascherano, David Villa, Dani Alves, Gerard Pique.

Mario Gotze, Juan Bernat, Pepe Reina, Mehdi Benatia, Xabi Alonso, Sinan Kurt, Douglas Costa, Sven Ulreich, Joshua Kimmich, Arturo Vidal, Kingsley Coman, Serdar Tasci.