Manchester City and Liverpool both find themselves at the same point of a transfer reset as they were in 2017
Comments
Sport
KIRKBY, ENGLAND - MAY 30: Jeremie Frimpong new signing of Liverpool at AXA Training Centre on May 30, 2025 in Kirkby, England. (Photo by Nikki Dyer - LFC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Jeremie Frimpong, new signing of Liverpool
The summer of 2017 will always be remembered as a big one from Manchester City, as the squad was transformed from one incapable of playing Pep Guardiola's football to the greatest team seen in Premier League history.
Way off the pace in Guardiola's first year in charge, a major overhaul of players allowed the Blues to set a pace of 100 points that blitzed everyone else in the league.
It certainly caught Liverpool cold, although they improved over the second half of that season and dumped City out of the Champions League before going toe-to-toe with them the next season and eventually winning the Premier League for themselves in 2020. At the heart of the battle between the two clubs was full-backs.
Jurgen Klopp put his faith in Trent Alexander-Arnold at the beginning of the 2017/18 season when Nathaniel Clyne suffered injury, while the Anfield club had also scooped up Andy Robertson from relegated Hull City.
This duo would go on to build a reputation as the best full-back partnership in the league, integral to Klopp's front-foot heavy-metal football as they flew forward at will and could switch play in an instant.
Guardiola's full-backs were less flashy but his changes were noisier. City were dismissed as rich fools when they paid £50m to make Kyle Walker the most expensive full-back in the game, while Benjamin Mendy cost £53m and Danilo was also signed from Real Madrid in a summer where Pablo Zabaleta, Gael Clichy, Aleks Kolarov and Bacary Sagna all left.
From very early on though it was evident that the new full-backs were critical to how Guardiola wanted his City team to function, and despite a serious injury to Mendy the manager found solutions that enabled his team to be successful.
The Champions League final was won with two centre-backs out wide, while the last few months of the most recent campaign featured two central midfielders occupying the positions.
That often felt like a bridge too far, and Guardiola admitted that if he would have said what was going to happen at full-back at the beginning of the season it would have left people gobsmacked. With Kyle Walker leaving and too many injuries at centre-back to cover the wide positions, City reached braking point this season.
At least one new full-back will be signed in the summer, and possible two. There was strong interest in Juventus's Andrea Cambiaso in January, while Tino Livramento and Rayan Ait-Nouri have been linked more recently.
Whoever City land on will be compared directly with the new era at Liverpool, with Alexander-Arnold gone to Real Madrid and Robertson's future uncertain with just one year remaining on his current deal.
Liverpool have already landed the first blow of the next full-back war by signing former City youngster Jeremie Frimpong from Bayer Leverkusen in a £29m deal, while they are also reportedly signing Bournemouth's Milos Kerkez on the other flank.
If the next wave of signings have a similar impact to the 2017 arrivals, both clubs can expect to compete with each other again for major honours.
--
Here at The Manchester Evening News, we're dedicated to bringing you the best Manchester City coverage and analysis.
Make sure you don't miss out on the latest City news by joining our free WhatsApp group. You can get the club's breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here to subscribe.
You can also subscribe to our free newsletter service. Click here to be sent all the day's biggest stories.
And, finally, if you'd rather listen to our expert analysis then make sure to check out our Talking City podcast. Our shows are available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and you can also watch along on YouTube.