Yoro call an early test of Liverpool's new-look recruitment team

Liverpool's new recruitment staff have made their first big call in not rivalling Manchester United for Leny Yoro.

Photo by David Bayliss on Unsplash

Although Liverpool would not have signed the player in either scenario, you wonder whether the club’s recruitment staff might well wish that Leny Yoro had ended up at Real Madrid this summer, rather than Manchester United.

Having grown used to it in recent years, Reds supporters could easily absorb the disappointment of missing out to the reigning European champions for a target given their standing in world football and sustained success.

But it is not so easy to stomach your biggest rivals - a club who have been in shambles for much of the last decade - instead swooping in to close a deal for a player you admire.

It is a surprising turn of events that has left sporting director Richard Hughes and others facing a barrage of criticism on social media since yesterday afternoon.

And yet, for all that reports emanating from Manchester will suggest that Liverpool were beaten out here, the fact remains that they could easily have rivalled their old enemy to sign Yoro from Lille.

However, that they didn’t is because a choice was made by a new-look recruitment team, one that they are clearly willing to live and die by.

Unlike United, Liverpool believed that a fee in excess of £50m for a teenager in the final year of his contract was excessive - a point Real Madrid agreed on. 

The Reds were also put off by the fact that Yoro has just 60 senior appearances to his name, well below the usual threshold they feel can mitigate against transfer risk.

What’s more, the £150,000-per-week pay packet the defender has been handed by United could not have been justified at Anfield given it would have put him immediately among the club’s top earners.

In those circumstances, you would likely have Jarell Quansah asking why he is not as highly valued after a brilliant breakthrough season of his own.

Similarly, to justify that wage, Yoro would surely have had to leapfrog Liverpool’s newest young star in the pecking order, as well as both Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez.

By contrast, that won’t be as big an issue at Old Trafford, where Erik Ten Hag’s centre-back options have rarely convinced on any consistent basis.

Still, for all that Liverpool’s logic in pulling out of the race seems sound on paper, each decision of this nature can only truly be judged by what follows when the season begins.

Should Yoro prove to be an inspired signing for United in a campaign that sees the Reds’ centre-backs struggle, then there is no question that deserved criticism will follow.

But Michael Edwards’ last stint at Liverpool was defined by his strong belief in a recruitment process that is once again being followed by a staff built in his image.

And so surely those who celebrated his return and that of an intelligent approach to the market must also be willing to get on board with this latest big call?

The same is true of the Reds’ lack of interest in Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi and RB Leipzig’s Mohamed Simakan, both of whom have been incorrectly touted as targets in recent weeks.

Ultimately, if Liverpool do not believe either of these players or Yoro are the right targets at the prices mooted, then it will no doubt be because they have very good reasons for that to be the case.

But, while Hughes and co fully accept that judgement of that stance will follow, it is probably only right that it does so once the football starts, rather than during a window that remains in its infancy.