Liverpool propaganda army lauds £225m 'Moneyball' double signing

Moneyball is not spending £225m on two of the biggest names in world football, no matter what the Liverpool propagandists tell you…

‘Wirtz and Isak cost just £50m so far’ is the bombastic headline on the back page of The Times. Well yes, because most transfer fees are now paid in instalments; this is not some transfer magic from the geniuses at Liverpool but standard practice across football.

“The rapid escalation of this in the past ten years ago has been incredible. Yes, fees have got bigger, but more and more clubs are effectively using a credit-card arrangement to buy talent,” said football finance expert Kieran Maguire in The Times last year, sounding an alarm bell.

And now here we are in September 2025 with Richard Hughes being lauded in the same newspaper for ‘negotiating payment structures…that ease financial pressure at Liverpool’. Well done Richard, you used the company credit card.

Premier League clubs collectively owed over £3billion in future player transfer instalments as of February 2025, and that figure must now be close to £4billion. When Chelsea and Manchester United play this game, it’s a worry; when Liverpool play the same game, it is cited as a genius move.

And the tone taken by The Times washes down through other outlets with the Daily Mail telling us: ‘Revealed: The surprising low transfer fee Liverpool are ‘committing to Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz this summer’ as details of their instalments and add-ons surface’.

It’s only a ‘surprisingly low fee’ if you are new to football. Or you just want to blow smoke up Liverpool’s arses. Arsenal paid for Declan Rice in three instalments over 24 months; does that mean that Arsenal paid a ‘surprisingly low fee’ for their record transfer? Did Mediawatch pay a ‘surprisingly low fee’ for that trip to Lake Garda?

On paper, that amounts to £241m for just two attacking players. However, that amount of money has not just left the Liverpool accounts in one lump sum; no, the structure of both deals means that the Reds have only committed to spending £51.25m on both players combined this summer, according to The Times.

Of course ‘that amount of money has not just left the Liverpool accounts in one lump sum’. Because This Is Not How Football Transfers Work Anymore.

Over at the Mirror:

Florian Wirtz’s real Liverpool transfer fee emerges as Reds could cost themselves more money

And what is his ‘real Liverpool transfer fee’? Is it not £100m rising to £116m with add-ons as widely reported?

Florian Wirtz could end up costing Liverpool an extra £16million, but the Reds will be quite happy to pay it.

Germany international Wirtz became one of the headline arrivals into the Premier League this summer when he joined the Reds from Bayer Leverkusen for an initial £100m which could rise to £116m with add-ons.

We already knew every single word of that; nothing has ’emerged’ other than the payment structure. It was a reported £100m rising to £116m fee and it remains a £100m rising to £116m fee. And of course Liverpool ‘will be quite happy to pay’ the add-ons because add-ons mean that a signing is a success. Honestly, have people just literally been born, or are they feigning ignorance for clicks?

Clearly, Paul Joyce of The Times, Chris Bascombe of the Daily Telegraph and James Pearce of The Athletic have all been fed large spoonfuls of propaganda designed to dispel the notion that Liverpool have spent massive amounts of money this summer.

Bascombe writes:

Wirtz’s fee is £100m spread over five years. An additional £16m will be paid to Bayer Leverkusen should Liverpool win four big trophies during his Anfield career, inclusive of the Premier League and Champions League. Should that happen it will lead to significant prize money, which will cover the extra costs.

The straight £125m fee for Isak will be spread across four seasons, meaning this summer’s first payments for Isak and Wirtz are a combined £51.25m. That will affect how much is available to spend on new players over the course of their contracts, but should they deliver they are as Moneyball as it gets.

Moneyball? Really? We have seen various definitions of ‘moneyball’ and this is just one from The Football Analyst: ‘The Moneyball concept centers on identifying undervalued assets through data. In football, this model has evolved into a detailed recruitment philosophy: blend analytics with traditional scouting, target system-specific profiles, and maximize both development and resale value.’

Does that sound like spending £225m on two of the biggest names in world football? Frankly, does it balls.

‘As Moneyball as it gets’ is just a collection of words that mean nothing. Four years ago Bascombe was writing about Liverpool and Brentford in the context of Moneyball being a ‘blueprint for teams who want to work smarter with their money and overhaul heavier-spending rivals’.

Sorry but Liverpool have just spent more than every other club in world football and it wasn’t even remotely close. They are the heavy spenders.

Mind you, that’s just a silly ‘external opinion’…

The external opinion is that the British record signings of Wirtz and Alexander Isak – the duo are likely to be pitched together for the first time at Burnley this weekend – represents an extravagant policy shift from pursuing emerging talent to “going big” and recruiting ready-made heavyweights.

Internally, that view is strongly dismissed as a flagrant misunderstanding of how the club operate.

And pray tell, where are these Liverpool propaganda-mongers sitting? We wasn’t aware they were writing from inside the club…

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