Liverpool journalist Paul Gorst has been shedding some light on the Merseyside club’s current financial situation.
This comes after Gorst recently made an appearance on the Liverpool Echo’s Blood Red Podcast where he spoke about a number of topics concerning the club.
On the subject of the lack of any transfer activity at Anfield this month, specifically on why the club haven’t signed a new centre-back yet after losing Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez to long-term injuries earlier in the season, Gorst had this to say on the financial aspect of the situation.
He said: “What I would say is, not so much sticking up for the club’s owners, but I think there is mitigation and there is a reason as to why they haven’t gone in market.
“They’re still playing behind closed doors. They haven’t had any fans inside Anfield really apart from three games of 2000 fans each since March, so they’re losing about £3 million per home game.
“On top of that, they’ve got one of the biggest wage bills in the sport, which was at £310 million I believe earlier this summer so since then they’ve signed Diogo Jota and Thiago Alcantara.
“Conservative estimate, what would you suggest they’re on? £100,000 each so there’s an extra £200,000 added to that wage bill so there’s not unlimited cash reserves at Liverpool and they’ve never made any secrets of that, it’s just a case of surely some funds could have been freed up somewhere along the lines to have brought in [a new defender].”
Do you blame the club's owners for the current financial situation?
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TIF Thoughts on Paul Gorst’s comments on Liverpool’s finances…
While Liverpool have certainly struggled this season with them currently having won just nine of their 19 played league games as well as crashing out of the FA Cup after losing 3-2 to Manchester United, it does seem that the finances at the club have had a negative impact on the fact that they haven’t been able to sign a defender as of yet.
In our view, if the financial aspect doesn’t allow the club to sign a new defender before the current January transfer window closes and the Reds end up losing out on the top four because of it, in our view, a lot of fingers will be pointed at the club’s hierarchy as a result.