Virgil van Dijk has warned Liverpool they must qualify for next year’s Champions League to attract the elite talent needed to put a miserable season behind them.
Liverpool’s attention immediately switched to a top four finish after the expected European elimination at the hands of Real Madrid, and there is no sugar-coating how detrimental missing out on the top tier competition will be.
Jurgen Klopp is hoping he can convince Jude Bellingham to move to Anfield this summer, and Liverpool are also keeping tabs on Mason Mount’s contract impasse at Chelsea. Aside from the financial complications of such transfers, failure to qualify for the Champions League would raise doubts as to whether the England midfielders would want to move to Anfield ahead of their rivals.
“If we want to be where we have been the last five years, we need quality imports, especially with those players leaving,” said Van Dijk.
“I think that’s quite obvious. Players are going to leave. That’s obviously been announced. But everyone knows that it’s going to be very difficult. It is going to be very difficult to find the right players, but the club has to do their job in this case. We still have a lot of games to play for us and we want to be in the Champions League. I think that will also help to attract the best players in the world. Not all the time, but it will definitely help.”
Liverpool face a daunting trio of games after the international break, traveling to Manchester City and Chelsea before hosting Premier League leaders Arsenal. That run will determine if a Champions League spot is still attainable, with Brighton, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur currently holding an advantage.
“It’s going to be very defining and that’s something we all know,” said Van Dijk.
“It’s been a season that we can’t find the consistency that we have had for the last few years. It sounds very simple but it’s the most difficult part of football and the most difficult part of being a footballer is to stay consistent in each and every game. We will give it absolutely everything because I want to play in the Champions League. We all want to play in the Champions League. The fans want to play in the Champions League.”
Liverpool’s hopes of a consistent end to the season suffered another setback with teenage midfielder Stefan Bajcetic ruled out for the remainder of the campaign with an abductor injury. The 18-year-old has established himself in the first team in a breakthrough season.
As Jurgen Klopp’s players disconsolately trudged out of the Bernabeu Stadium after a humbling two-legged defeat to Real Madrid, thoughts inevitably turned to how soon they will return to Europe’s biggest stages.
No-one at Liverpool will disguise the negative consequences of dropping into the Europa League, or worse still the UEFA Conference League.
The financial cost is huge. Since Klopp led Liverpool back into the Champions League in 2017, the Merseyside club has earned just shy of £500 million in assorted UEFA prize money and broadcast revenues.
Last season alone was worth £102 million as the club reached the Paris final. A round of sixteen exits this time is still worth an estimated £80 million.
But with more dividends comes greater costs. Despite so much success when Liverpool played every conceivable match in a 63 game season in 2021-22, the club recently announced profits of just £7 million. That is why owners Fenway Sports Group have been so public about their pursuit of investment.
Why have they earned so little? Because winnings have been re-invested. Players’ contracts include bonuses based on appearances and trophy success, and the more individual performances are responsible for increasing revenues, the more their savvy agents push for a healthy pay rise in those prolonged contract negotiations. For media and football supporters there is an obsession on the ‘net spend’ of a club in each transfer window to paint a portrait of an owner as generous or frugal, salary increases and agents fees are still generally overlooked when considering where all the money goes.
Senior players such as Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk are on contracts in excess of £300k a week which reflects their stellar contribution and the club’s Champions League status, the anticipation when they signed long-term deals being the UEFA cashflow would remain intact.
The longer a club is exiled from the Champions League, the harder it is to sustain one of the highest wage bills in Europe.
Then there is the impact on transfer targets and their affordability. Liverpool have been able to budget for guaranteed UEFA revenue when heading into each summer transfer window. They face an anxious wait to see what the last two months of this season bring.
Klopp has often said that he instantly turned off if a player’s sole motivation is to join a club in the Champions League. But the benefits of being in are self-evident. Jude Bellingham will have his pick of destinations and if Liverpool are not in the top four he has a dilemma he would not have expected when plotting his career trajectory last summer.
But for all the obvious unwanted, deeply unattractive side effects, there are recent examples that show that failing to finish in the top four need not be a calamity.
A late failure at the end of last season did not stop Arsenal making the game-changing signing of Gabriel Jesus to spearhead Mikel Arteta’s revival. It could be argued that Arsenal’s absence from the intensity of midweek Champions League football has been a blessing in disguise for their unexpected title bid.
Likewise, Casemiro was a serial Champions League winner at Real Madrid, but was still happy to demote himself to the lesser European competition when moving to Manchester United, although he was made a financial offer he could not refuse.
FSG can also point out that they have run the club in such a way to ensure their financial security does not depend on a top four finish. They have only ever spent what their budget allows – a necessary contrast to their predecessors whose entire business model relied on ongoing Champions League participation. When Liverpool dropped out of the competition in 2010 having been involved for five consecutive seasons, it precipitated the end of George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks’ reign because they could no longer guarantee bank repayments.
Liverpool are not so vulnerable in 2023 and the owners have publicly committed to strengthening the squad no matter where they finish in the Premier League. Champions League exile would be a major sporting setback and desperate blow to the club’s self-esteem rather than an economic catastrophe.
Liverpool have 12 Premier League games left to render all nightmare scenarios irrelevant.
There will be no open top bus parade, no book written about the season and no hastily commissioned documentaries should Liverpool salvage a miserable campaign by reclaiming a Champions League spot between now and May.
But just as with the climax to 2020/21, should Klopp’s side finish strongly to preserve Liverpool’s status there will be a clearer path towards immediate recovery.