Alexander Isak transfer proves Liverpool have changed the Premier League’s power dynamic | OneFootball

It is a show of where power lies. That’s not just in how Liverpool finally added the signing of Alexander Isak to a statement 1-0 victory over Arsenal, but also the manner in which the deal was finally struck.

It was, to quote someone who said similar about the Super League, “an ownership thing”. Fenway Sports Group have a good relationship with the Public Investment Fund, going right back through LIV Golf, and a deal was eventually struck. That is the level we’re talking about. Business and geopolitics came into it.

Sure, pride might initially have been pricked, especially with Isak’s notorious statement. Yassir Al-Rumayyan might similarly be the most powerful official to have ever operated in football, given that he is the chair of Saudi Aramco. The PIF, however, isn’t yet able to exert that power through Newcastle United. Liverpool are still the bigger club, able to spend more money.

Realism had to take precedence over emotion. Isak’s great gambit, and the playbook he followed, eventually paid off. No one can say he was badly advised now. He got the move he wanted.

The reality for the Premier League has also shifted.

The champions are now also the true power. With this signing, Liverpool have done even more than spend around £420m from a position of strength. They have broken the English transfer record twice in this window, to form a Galactico-level attack.

There’s first of all the big names but then their levels and trajectories. In Mohammed Salah, at 33, Liverpool have one of the best players from the last generation. In Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, at 22 and 23 respectively, they have two of the most exciting players from the next generation.

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Alexander Isak is on his way to Liverpool (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Wire)

And now, given Isak turns 26 in three weeks, there’s a world star in his prime right now. Arne Slot has both Salah and his successor together in the same team. The very thought is exhilarating for Liverpool and frightening for everyone else.

Some connected to both Manchester City and Newcastle were already referencing Jurgen Klopp’s words from three years ago, that “there are three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially” – referring to Newcastle, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.

He was talking about state ownership but nothing like Liverpool’s window has really been seen in the English game, at least in relative terms. It’s true top-of-the-food chain spending, in the way Real Madrid used to do. Liverpool would of course have some obvious ripostes.

For one, Klopp’s side repeatedly lost out to City’s financial superiority over six years, but the very spirit of the team ensured they became one of the most admired in the world. That in turn made them one of the most commercially attractive in the world, which has allowed them to “organically” develop this position of financial power. They can claim they’re “due”.

Astute player trading has also ensured they still have a lower net spend than Arsenal in this window in terms of fees, even after Isak arrives. Liverpool’s last published wage bill was £80m higher, but there has also been considerable change there.

Much of this is also from the fact they spent barely anything over 2024. This window would look a lot less bombastic had they signed any of Isak, Wirtz or Ekitike last summer. Liverpool have consequently built up a lot of PSR headroom.

This is a victory of supreme planning, from perhaps the best-run club in football, who have only amplified what was already one of the best teams in football.

Liverpool haven’t done anything like this since the end of the 1980s, and it might offer the symmetry of setting off another glory era. They will surely be going to win both the league and the Champions League in the same season, for the first time since 1984.

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Liverpool have bought big this summer including fellow forward Hugo Ekitike (Peter Byrne/PA) (PA Wire)

This is a project coming to “maturation”. It may not feel very “moneyball” but that is exactly what moneyball is supposed to evolve to. You initially spend cleverly, so you get to the point you can eventually spend more; that you can compete. It is about evolution and growth. A capitalist fund like FSG has successfully grown a prize asset.

There are wider points to be explored. Multiple things can be true at once. You can laud Liverpool’s planning, and how well they’re run, and also have wider discussions about how the game is run.

Financial disparity remains a problem. This, it should be stressed, is not an argument against PSR. That is just a financial constraint, that is essential to the sustainability of the sport.

The problem, as The Independent has long argued, is the system that PSR sits in. It is one where distribution of revenue and talent is grossly unequal, creating this self-perpetuating cycle where there is an ever narrower concentration of wealth.

You only have to look at the way Champions League prize money has been distributed over the past two decades, and especially between the eight crucial years of 2016 to 2024 that traversed the Super League.

As the most prominent example, Leicester City would have been guaranteed a mere £1.5m had they qualified for the Champions League at the end of the 2020-21 season. Chelsea instead pipped them to fourth, and were guaranteed at least £30m. That crowned a period from 1992 to 2018 where over a third of all Champions League prize money went to only 12 clubs – the Super League clubs. The figure is of course even more striking if you include Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

And all this in a world where a series of competition law cases are now questioning both Fifa and Uefa about competitive balance in the sport. Football’s authorities have overseen this system that has fostered such financial disparity. Hence a theme of this summer, where the old big six have signed so many stars from the Premier League's previously burgeoning middle classes. The Isak transfer represents the culmination of all that. Newcastle are left working around it.

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Newcastle have been forced to find a replacement for their star striker (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Wire)

This is consequently something much bigger than Liverpool’s spending this summer, and there are other counter-arguments there, too.

They haven’t even retained the Premier League yet. They’ve still had to make strategic calculations, from who to sell and where to buy. Slot hasn’t got that No 6 midfielder he would have loved in Martin Zubimendi. The imbalance of the squad has already been repeatedly pointed out this season, and this signing further front-loads that sensational attack.

Marc Guehi might also arrive to shore up the defence, but Slot is clearly going for goals; for risk, for rolling the dice. There is a lot to be admired in that.

Rivals like Arsenal or City could have apportioned their budgets in different ways. City instead went for a refresh. Arsenal went for depth. Liverpool have gone for game-changers.

In doing so, they may well have changed the very power structure of the Premier League. That is about more than these famous old clubs. It’s about a new world of owners, and where the power really lies.