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Jamie Carragher has urged Liverpool to make three specific signings in the summer to avoid another turbulent season like this one.
For all the noise that surrounded last summer’s eye-watering spending spree – a window that brought Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike through the doors at a combined cost north of £290m – the on-pitch returns have been mixed at best, and at times genuinely alarming.
The Reds currently sit on eighteen defeats for the campaign, well off the pace in the title race they swept up only twelve months ago, and the structural cracks in the squad have been impossible to paper over no matter how much money has been thrown at the attacking third.
Now, with Mo Salah’s future already decided and obvious soft spots at right-back and in central midfield, Carragher has used his Sky Sports platform to outline exactly where he believes the focus must shift this summer.
“Liverpool fans have been desperate for Liverpool to spend real big money, maybe like we’ve seen Man City or Chelsea in the past in one summer,” Carragher said on Sky Sports.
“Everyone was excited in the summer, but it didn’t feel Liverpool-like to me, or certainly over the last ten years and how they got to the top under Jurgen Klopp.”
“It felt almost Real Madrid – go and buy the best players for loads of money.”
He added that a right-winger, a right-back, and a central midfielder has to be the priority in the summer market:
“I want Liverpool to go back to buying the right players for the right money and what they need right now.
“They won’t be able to do what they did last summer, they don’t have that type of revenue.
“They don’t need to bring six or seven players in, because it’s more change, but there’s three players that need to go right into the team for me.
“Replace Mo Salah with a right winger, a right-back and a central midfielder then the players you bought last summer like Ekitike, Isak, Wirtz, become better players.”
Whether the boardroom shares Carragher’s vision is another matter entirely, but with serious questions now hanging over Slot, the recruitment team and the broader direction of the club, this summer is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in recent Liverpool memory.