AnField: Liverpool managed to get themselves four new signings wrapped up early on this summer, but with the exception of goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, the new arrivals seem to be brought in to bolster the squad depth rather than improve the first XI.
Mignolet, along with Iago Aspas,
Luis Alberto and Kolo Toure, were all signed before the start of July,
while it was then expected that the Reds would move for their preferred
first XI signings.
Going by the frequency and perceived
reliability of most of the rumours for Liverpool's summer targets, there
are a number of players who could relatively safely be identified as
the Reds' first-choice signings.
The Reds were, and remain, known to want to bring in a central defender and an attacking midfielder, as per Brendan Rodgers' comments on the official club website, while a powerful central midfielder and, quite possibly, a full-back were also on the agenda.
A widely reported first-choice target of the Reds was Armenian attacking midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Liverpool were thought to be close to signing the former Shakhtar Donetsk man, as per the BBC, having indicated they would pay the figure needed to release him from his contract in the Ukraine. However, on Tuesday the same media outlet announced that Mkhitaryan had opted to join Borussia Dortmund in Germany, for around £24 million.
It should not have been a prohibitive fee for the Reds to pay, given they could recoup that with the sales of Andy Carroll, Jonjo Shelvey and one more squad player—perhaps Oussama Assaidi—but somewhere along the line, the deal failed to materialise.
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