Premier League owner admits he regrets selling star player to Liverpool - 'I wish'

Premier League owner admits he regrets selling star player to Liverpool - 'I wish'

Brighton & Hove Albion majority owner Tony Bloom has admitted he regrets selling Alexis Mac Allister to Liverpool

Alexis Mac Allister and Harvey Elliott of Liverpool arrive at the stadium prior to the pre-season friendly match between Liverpool and Athletic Club Bilbao at Anfield (Image: 2025 Liverpool FC)

Brighton & Hove Albion majority owner Tony Bloom has admitted he regrets selling Alexis Mac Allister to Liverpool. The Reds signed the Argentina international in a £35m deal in the summer of 2023.

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Mac Allister, who won the World Cup while a Seagulls player, has thrived since moving to Anfield. Making 97 appearances, returning 14 goals and 14 assists, he has won both the Premier League and League Cup during his two seasons at the club. Meanwhile, his form in Liverpool’s title-winning campaign last season saw him named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year.

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Brighton have sold a number of high-profile players to leading Premier League sides in recent years, including Joao Pedro, Moises Caicedo, Leandro Trossard, Marc Cucurella and Yves Bissouma.

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And Bloom has admitted that Mac Allister is the one he wishes most was still at Brighton.

“Well, in the last five years we’ve sold some top players who are playing at really big clubs and doing fantastically well,” he said when answering questions from supporters on the Seagulls’ YouTube channel with the club's former striker Glenn Murray.

“It’s tough to name one of those players, but I guess I’d pick Alexis, who I wish was still at the club. He did (win the Premier League) after winning the World Cup while a Brighton player.

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“And good luck to him! He’s a brilliant player, a brilliant person and I’m just delighted for him.”

Bloom continued: “I could say the same about quite a few others, but we understand how the system works.

“We bring players in, they improve, hopefully they improve, a lot of the time they do improve and they get sold for big money.

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“They’re not all a success but a lot of them have been I think, particularly in the last five years. We’ve been really successful on that and we want to keep doing that.

“We keep looking for younger players we think are undervalued who are going to improve under us.

“And then, either they stay with us and be successful with us or sometimes they move on.”

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Mac Allister might have left Brighton as a World champion when he signed for Liverpool in 2023, but he recently admitted how close he came to quitting the clu three years earlier.

The Seagulls signed the 26-year-old from Argentinos Juniors in January 2019, but stayed with the club on loan until the end of the 2018/19 Premier League season.

He was then sent on loan to Boca Juniors for the 2019/20 campaign, only to be recalled by Brighton the following January.

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He made his debut for the club against Wolves in March 2020, in what would prove to be the Seagulls' last match until the Premier League’s restart the following June due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Mac Allister has revealed he was desperate to leave Brighton in December 2020, and even had offers from Spain and Russia. His bags were packed, ready to depart. But after he FaceTimed his mother in tears, she made him realise he had to stay put.

“I have to give a big hug to my mother,” he wrote in The Player’s Tribune . “Without her, none of this would have happened. I would not be a Premier League champion. I certainly would not be a World Cup champion. Maybe you would not even know my name.

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“In December 2020, I got on FaceTime with her, and I was sobbing. I was at my flat in Brighton, and she was back home in Buenos Aires. I had lost my head.

“I said: 'Mum, I can’t do it anymore. I’m coming home. I need to get out of here'. At the time, I was barely playing for Brighton.

“It was embarrassing, because I had the No. 10 shirt for a Premier League club, which is the dream of so many kids in Argentina, but I was a nobody. My name was nothing. I thought that I was cursed.

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“When I first moved over to England from Boca Juniors at the beginning of 2020, I came on as a sub for one match, and a few days later, the world came to a stop. COVID.

“Bang. Everything shut down. No football. No friends. And the worst part was that I was stuck in a country where I didn’t speak the language. I actually started taking basic English classes over Zoom.

“As footballers, we always say that you become a man very early. But in other ways, you’re still a boy. I was calling my mom on FaceTime every day, asking how to turn on the oven and where to put the detergent.

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“And being alone, without playing, you get depressed. Many don't know this, but by that Christmas, with no fans in the stadiums, I had my bags packed. Literally, they were packed.

“I had two offers to leave - one from Russia and another from Spain, and my mind was made up. My mom was back in Buenos Aires, and I called her one day crying my eyes out, telling her: 'I quit. I can’t do this anymore'.

“But moms…. They always know what to say, don’t they? No matter how old you are, you’re still a little kid when you’re talking to your mom…

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“I was so nostalgic for those times (back home as a child) when I was in Brighton, all alone, sitting on the bench. The grass is always greener, isn’t it? I wanted to go home so bad. But my mum made me see the light.

“Can you imagine if I had left for Spain? For Russia? I would be an answer in one of those pub quizzes they have in England.

“But no, that was not my fate. My mom saved me. After Christmas, we had so many injuries at Brighton that they basically had no option but to play me.

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“I think a lot of people were probably watching Match of the Day saying: 'Who is this Mac Allister guy? Is he Scottish? He’s from Argentina? What?! The kid with the ginger beard?'

“When I scored two against Everton in January 2022, it felt like everything clicked for me… Every player has that click. For me, it was that day at Goodison. I became something different.”

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