Bradley Barcola stretched out his arms despairingly; Ryan Gravenberch turned on his heel and sighed; Milos Kerkez punched the air in frustration.

All of the above came after Florian Wirtz had fired wildly off target in Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday, with each of his teammates’ reactions shown in a clip that has been viewed millions of times on social media. It was a fairly innocuous sequence — the kind that occurs in almost every match at the elite level — but, in this instance, it was held up as a microcosm of Wirtz’s enduring struggles at Anfield.

The 23-year-old was once again ineffectual against City, and was taken out of the match after Gravenberch’s red card midway through the second half. The fact that Wirtz was coach Andoni Iraola’s first choice to be withdrawn while his team were a goal down and in desperate need of inspiration was damning, considering he was recruited to be Liverpool’s main creative spark when he joined the club from Bayer Leverkusen for an initial £100 million only 16 months ago.

“I think he needs to come out of the team,” former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said on Sky Sports after the match. “I said that last time out, and I’m going to say it again. I said Liverpool played well today for a lot of the game before the Gravenberch red card, but they didn’t create a chance … and that’s what you bought Wirtz for. He’s not giving you anything defensively, and he’s not giving you anything going the other way.”

It was a scathing assessment, but one that has since been echoed across the board by fans and pundits alike. Still, there is a school of thought that Wirtz’s chronic underperformance in the Premier League is symptomatic of a wider problem at Liverpool.

Across the past two summer windows, the Reds’ net spend has totaled £480 million. Three of the players signed during that period (Wirtz, Barcola and Alexander Isak) arrived for a transfer fee of £100 million or more. But all have come under intense scrutiny at Anfield.

In the case of Barcola, some patience is required, but the cohort of players signed in summer 2025 are increasingly under pressure to deliver. After nearly a decade of smart recruitment, Liverpool’s extravagance in recent transfer windows is beginning to seem more like a hindrance than a help.

Is Liverpool’s recruitment team still among the best in the world?

For Liverpool, this is unfamiliar territory. In the years between 2015 and 2020, the club’s transfer hit rate was almost unparalleled in the Premier League. The arrivals of Roberto Firmino, James Milner and Joe Gomez in 2015 were followed a year later by those of Sadio Mané, Georginio Wijnaldum and Joel Matip.

A year after that came the signings of Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson, while Virgil van Dijk arrived on Merseyside in January 2018. Alisson and Fabinho then joined that same summer.

That core of players formed the bedrock of Liverpool’s success under Jürgen Klopp, turning the club into a domestic powerhouse and restoring its standing among Europe’s elite. For a long spell, the failed signing of Naby Keita from RB Leipzig in 2017 — for what was, at the time, a club-record fee of £48 million — was an outlier.

Signed as one of the Bundesliga’s brightest talents, injuries prevented Keita from ever really establishing himself as a regular at Anfield — although, when he left the club in 2023, he did so as a Premier League and Champions League winner.

While several of Liverpool’s rivals, chiefly Manchester United and Chelsea, were lambasted for a sequence of expensive and ultimately ill-fated signings, the Reds’ recruitment team was regarded as elite football’s gold standard. With Liverpool’s football operations department pioneered by much-vaunted sporting director Michael Edwards and director of research Ian Graham (neither of whom are still in situ), the club signed good players and turned them into great ones, only committing big money to the select few deemed transformational.

Since 2020, though, Liverpool’s record in the market has been decidedly more varied. There have been successes — Diogo Jota, Ibrahima Konaté and Alexis Mac Allister are among the highlights — but there have also been disappointments.

While he admittedly played a part in Liverpool’s Premier League triumph under Arne Slot, striker Darwin Núñez never lived up to his £64 million transfer fee after signing from Benfica in 2022. Thiago Alcantara was a fan favorite only for injury woes to limit his long-term impact in midfield, while winger Federico Chiesa has struggled to recapture his early-career form since joining the club from Juventus in 2024.

A constantly evolving landscape behind the scenes has not helped matters. Liverpool have had four different sporting directors since 2022, with Julian Ward now taking on the role for a second time after the departure of Richard Hughes last month.

Balancing the books has also been made more difficult by Liverpool’s diminishing prowess at recouping significant fees for outgoing players. Having previously excelled in that area, the Reds lost Konaté and Salah on free transfers, while Real Madrid dispensed with just £10 million to land Trent Alexander-Arnold ahead of last year’s Club World Cup as his contract was running out. Also, with only one year remaining on his contract, Curtis Jones joined Inter Milan for just £30 million in the summer, while Harvey Elliott is now on loan at Valencia following a disastrous loan spell at Aston Villa last term.

Although some factors in those cases were beyond Liverpool’s control, the fact remains that they have lost out on a considerable amount of income from players leaving the club.

Pressure rising for Liverpool’s big-money stars

Liverpool’s £450 million outlay in summer 2025 was designed to help the club begin to build a dynasty following their title win just a few months prior. They targeted young talent who had already excelled at the top level but also had the potential to grow and evolve as part of a new-look team.

Hindsight is 20/20, but there was little indication that Wirtz would be anything other than a success when Liverpool beat Manchester City and Bayern Munich to his signing in June 2025. Having been Leverkusen’s star during their invincible Bundesliga season in 2023-24, the midfielder was regarded as one of the best young talents in Europe.

The reality, though, has been quite different. Wirtz has managed just seven goals and 10 assists in 56 appearances. His last goal for Liverpool came in the 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace back in April, and he has managed just two assists in eight outings this season.

It also does not help his cause that Rayan Cherki — who had conversations with Slot and Liverpool before joining Manchester City from Lyon — has delivered far more tangible output, despite his £34 million transfer fee coming in at less than a third of Wirtz’s.

Former Liverpool boss Klopp was quick to defend the 23-year-old after calling him up to the Germany squad last month. “Attacking players always need a team that works well around them,” Klopp told reporters. “And anyone who loves football can still see how outstanding Florian Wirtz is as a player.”

play

Nicol believes Klopp is wrong for backing Wirtz’s Liverpool performances

But despite impressing in Germany’s 2-0 victory over Serbia, Wirtz was unable to translate his international form into a strong display against City. In many ways, his performances have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The more the noise around him grows, the more he seems to struggle, and he looks like a player devoid of all confidence. Without a steep upturn in form, it is hard to see how that confidence is restored.

There is a clear distinction between his domestic performances and those in the Champions League, where his technical brilliance often shines through. Against LASK on Wednesday, he picked up an assist for Barcola and completed 50 of his 58 passes, but the challenge is showing that same quality in the more physical Premier League.

He is not the only big-money signing who has struggled. After a torrid 2025-26 campaign, Isak started this season well, but a thigh injury ruled him out of the City clash. With four Premier League goals to his name, the £125 million-striker has already surpassed his tally from the entirety of last term (three) but that means little if his availability continues to keep him out of the biggest games.

Left back Kerkez has improved since his shaky start to life at Anfield, but he is still a long way off reaching the heady heights hit by Robertson at his peak; Jeremie Frimpong’s relatively modest £29.5 million fee has done little to offset the criticism he has received after struggling to impress at both right back and right wing; while both Giovanni Leoni and Hugo Ekitike are continuing their respective recoveries from long-term injuries.

Still, Liverpool were seemingly undeterred by the mixed fortunes of last summer’s intake, choosing to spend big again this summer to sign Paris Saint-Germain’s Barcola, who joined for an initial £106 million in August.

The France international was largely on the peripheries of the action against City but got his first goals for the club in the Champions League on Wednesday, scoring his first career hat trick against LASK. The caliber of the opposition will be called into question, but his performance was encouraging.

There is an acceptance on Merseyside that it will take time for Barcola to adapt to English football — particularly in light of his truncated preseason at PSG as he waited for his transfer to be agreed — but, with the games coming thick and fast, Liverpool need him to continue his goal-scoring form.

Of course, players are not responsible for setting their transfer fees, and elite potential now comes at a cost. The average age of Liverpool’s squad is 25.2, and sources told ESPN the expectation internally is that the age profiles of most of their recent recruits mean success is unlikely to be immediate.

Liverpool appear to have landed two very exciting young talents in Víctor Muñoz and Jérémy Jacquet, while the loan signing of Barcelona captain Ronald Araújo has so far appeared to be a masterstroke and there is a £47 million option to land him permanently.

Still, the paucity of options available to Iraola off the bench against City showed the risk of prioritizing big names rather than spreading resources more evenly across the squad. Injuries to Isak, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai hampered Liverpool greatly on Sunday, but even at full health, they still lack the strength in depth of City and Arsenal.

It makes the need for their superstar signings to begin delivering on their potential all the more pressing. With the Iraola era yet to take flight, Liverpool’s success this season depends on it.