Liverpool boss praises transfer chief Richard Hughes amid previous role and Bournemouth's 'quality' threat

Speaking at his press conference, he was first asked about Bournemouth’s quality, calling them ‘aggressive’ before reflecting on how Hughes had helped them build a strong team full of quality that included two of his former players. “They have a lot of individual quality because, like I said, Andoni did a great job over there but the sporting director that worked there for so many years did a very good job as well - maybe because of that Liverpool tried to get him and Marcos [Senesi] and Luis [Sinisterra] are two examples of.”

When asked about how their relationship is after their time working together thus far, he said, “It’s been good from the start like all the others you work with it only develops if work longer with each other and gets better as you get to know each other so he gets to know my ideas about football even better. He already knew them really, really well - that was also the reason why I wanted to join Liverpool because he knew more about me than just results. And day by day, I get to know him even better and our relationship is very good.”

He oversaw a very profitable first transfer window as exits included the £27.5m received for Fabio Carvalho, the £20m for Sepp van den Berg and the £10m raised from Bobby Clark’s exit to RB Salzburg. On top of that, they received around £7.5m from the sell-on-clause in the deal for Dominic Solanke and loans were granted for Stefan Bajcetic and Nat Phillips.

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Before that, he helped Bournemouth to strengthen on and off the pitch. He sourced Andoni Iraola as manager but also played a key role in bringing Ryan Christie to the club for just £1.5m, Tyrone Mings for £8m, earning a record amount from the sale of Nathan Ake when they were relegated, Aaron Ramsdale for £800k and £19m for Solanke from Liverpool, which eventually turned into £65m profit for the club.