Jadon Sancho warning shows why Jurgen Klopp was right over Liverpool and Chelsea transfer decisions

As Chelsea near the end of another underwhelming season, a look at their mismatch of a squad and it’s surprising how many could have perhaps been Liverpool players instead.

Raheem Sterling of course started his senior career with the Reds, before exiting for Man City in controversial circumstances in a £49m move in the summer of 2015. Meanwhile, Liverpool’s failed pursuits of Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia last summer are both well-documented, with the pair opting to snub Anfield switches in favour of moves to Stamford Bridge worth up to a combined £173m.

Conor Gallagher briefly emerged as a surprise target under consideration last summer as the Reds reassessed their transfer options ahead of a midfield overhaul, while Liverpool had been frequently linked with Enzo Fernandez prior to his £106.8m move from Benfica to Chelsea.

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The Reds are also known admirers of Levi Colwill, while Anfield bosses were credited as thinking highly of Carney Chukwuemeka prior to his £20m move from Aston Villa. Meanwhile, Football.London have previously reported that Chelsea fended off interest from Liverpool to sign Benoit Badiashile from Monaco in an initial £34m deal in January 2023.

And back in 2016 after a successful stint on loan at Huddersfield Town, the Reds tried to sign Ben Chilwell from Leicester City, following a recommendation from then Terriers boss David Wagner, only to be put off by the Foxes’ £10m asking price after having a £7m bid rejected.

Then there is Christopher Nkunku, who Liverpool’s recruitment reportedly favoured ahead of Darwin Nunez when targeting a new striker in the summer of 2022. The Frenchman and Uruguayan enjoyed 35 and 34-goal campaigns respectively with RB Leipzig and Benfica prior to Reds interest.

Liverpool ultimately opted for Nunez, with the striker Jurgen Klopp’s choice, and landed him in a deal worth up to a club-record £85m. After scoring 15 goals in his maiden season on Merseyside, he has followed it up with another 18 this year.

In contrast, Nkunku would stay put at Leipzig, going on to score 23 goals before moving to Chelsea in a £52m deal. Yet this season, recurring injuries have limited him to just 11 appearances and two goals.

Admittedly, Chelsea could perhaps throw the same accusation back at Liverpool. They reportedly tried to sign Nunez last summer, after all, and had been linked with the likes of Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk, and Alexis Mac Allister prior to their moves to Anfield.

Meanwhile, Mohamed Salah spent an unsuccessful 12 months at Chelsea before leaving on loan for Italy. The Egyptian had initially been on the Reds’ radar, only for the Londoners to swoop in and sign him from Basel for £11m in January 2014.

Liverpool and Chelsea have boasted a rather incestual relationship since the Londoners’ overnight transformation into Premier League title challengers after Roman Abramovich’s takeover of the club in 2003.

Over the past two decades, Yossi Benayoun, Fernando Torres, Raul Meireles, Daniel Sturridge, Victor Moses, and Dominic Solanke have all completed direct moves between the two clubs, which Nicolas Anelka, Fabio Borini, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson, and Bolo Zenden join Sterling and Salah in representing both in the modern Premier League era.

At least with Chelsea flailing in recent years, Liverpool have not suffered the same frustrations they once felt when locking horns with the Stamford Bridge outfit in the transfer market.

With Chelsea at one point paying the biggest wages, guaranteeing Champions League football, and offering almost certain Premier League titles, the likes of Florent Malouda, Juan Mata, and Willian would all seemingly spurn Liverpool for Chelsea. Diego Costa and Timo Werner would also opt for Stamford Bridge after switches to Anfield did not materialise.

When an elite club, transfer targets are inevitably going to overlap. But the Reds and London Blues have regularly locked horns both on and off the field in recent years, with the arrival of Jurgen Klopp at Anfield in October 2015 arguably levelling the playing field before switching the pendulum in Liverpool’s favour.

Wile Chelsea might not have been able to match the Reds’ level under the German, ultimately declining following Todd Boehly’s takeover of the club in 2022, they still had the financial clout to compete in the transfer market.

A look at those to most recently opt for Chelsea over Liverpool, it is easy to call their wisdom into question. Likewise, you can suggest given their fortunes at Stamford Bridge, on more than one occasion the Reds might have had a lucky escape.

Imagine the outcry for example, if Liverpool had spent big on Lavia or Nkunku, only for them to miss the majority of the season through injury.

They are talented players, hence why both clubs identified them as transfer targets in the first place. But sometimes a club just isn’t the right fit, with the ongoing chaos at Stamford Bridge hardly the most settling environment to build success.

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher would make a similar point earlier this week when lauding Jadon Sancho following a successful loan return to Borussia Dortmund. After flopping at Manchester United for two and a half seasons after his £73m switch to Old Trafford, he has shone back in the Bundesliga and recently helped fire the German outfit to the Champions League final.

“He was brilliant wasn’t he? Fantastic,” Carragher said on CBS after Dortmund’s semi-final win over Paris Saint-Germain. “He’s not Dortmund’s player, he’s Manchester United’s player.

“So United fans will be watching this game thinking, “We want that player, where’s that player? We haven’t seen that player for two years”.

“But that is the player that they bought. “Moving clubs, sometimes it’s just the kit, the feeling, the stadium, the confidence that you’ve got… it doesn’t feel the right fit at Manchester United.

“And that’s not just for him, that’s for a lot of players. At certain clubs, you just feel more yourself.”

That would perhaps appear to be the case both at Anfield and Stamford Bridge.

“Here between us, I can say my God were we lucky, eh?” Klopp joked to supporters back in December at Anfield Road stand test event, alluding to Liverpool missing out on both Caicedo and Lavia.

Understandably such comments were taken as a dig at the pair, considering Chelsea’s unflattering contrasting fortunes to the Reds. But deep down, it was more to do with the German’s happiness with the players he signed in their place. A League Cup win at the Londoners' expense two months later, despite a crippling injury crisis, would have only added to such a feeling.

In the market for a new holding midfielder last summer, Liverpool surprisingly ended up signing Wataru Endo from VfB Stuttgart in a £16.2m deal. The then 30-year-old was Japan captain and had fought against relegation in Germany, and would have been way down the Reds’ list of preferred targets at the start of the summer.

But fast forward to the end of the season, seeing Caicedo and Lavia underwhelm as Chelsea struggle, and his arrival looks both a bargain and a masterstroke. Sometimes, it’s just the right fit. How different would so many careers have been if they had chosen red instead of blue, with Salah's contrasting fortunes at both clubs the perfect example.

Even while the jury might now still be out on a player like Nunez following a challenging end to the season, which in itself has become a rare scenario at Anfield, Nkunku is yet to find himself in a situation where he could make Liverpool rue their final choice.

For now, Klopp's preference has been justified. But only time will tell how much they are the right fit in the current surroundings. While not longing for what they could have won, should Nkunku end up outperforming Nunez next season, then the scrutiny he is currently facing will be rather small in comparison.

After the German departs this summer, the Uruguayan will still have to reward his faith for bringing him to Anfield in the first place.

Yet despite such a debate, Klopp and the Reds recruitment team have at least ensured that they have uncovered the right fit time and time again over the past nine years, making the best of any situation they face - even when missing out on first-choice transfer targets. The successes far exceed the failures during his time in charge.

With Arne Slot set to succeed the German in the Anfield dugout this summer, he faces a big challenge to keep that same feeling in place. Especially with the same rivals lying in wait for would-be targets when the transfer window re-opens.

This next-generation Liverpool needs to be different but same. After all, you only need to look at the unsettled environment at both Chelsea and Manchester United to see what can happen and how quickly it can unravel when you don’t have the right fit in place.