It’s emerged that Liverpool could have signed one of the marquee players in world football two years ago, with the man in question having reportedly shaken hands on a possible move to Anfield.
According to L’Equipe, Kylian Mbappe was seeking an exit from Paris Saint-Germain in 2022 and had agreed terms on a short-term deal with the Reds, although the proposed transfer ultimately collapsed due to a discrepancy over the fee involved.
The France superstar had even asked to be omitted from PSG’s first Ligue 1 game of the 2022/23 campaign as the saga rumbled on, but despite LFC offering what would’ve been a club-record £168.6m for the forward, the Parisian outfit demanded twice that amount.
The player ultimately agreed a two-year contract extension at the Parc des Princes before joining Real Madrid as a free agent earlier this year. Had the move to Liverpool materialised, it would’ve been with a view to him eventually ending up at the Bernabeu.
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Mbappe’s standing in world football is almost peerless, with the 25-year-old already scoring 286 senior club goals and another 48 for France, including a hat-trick in the 2022 World Cup final.
Aside from his near-unparalled goal prowess, Les Bleus manager Didier Deschamps has hailed the attacker as a ‘fantastic leader‘, a status underlined by the Real Madrid star captaining his country for the past 18 months.
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In the summer that the Frenchman had agreed terms with Liverpool, the Reds eventually strengthened their attack with Darwin Nunez, and Cody Gakpo followed midway through the subsequent season, which was one of struggle at Anfield as the Reds slumped to a fifth-place finish and missed out on the Champions League.
Had Mbappe been in Jurgen Klopp’s squad, that could’ve made the difference when it came to maintaining our place in the top four, particularly with Mo Salah (30) being the only player at LFC to surpass 15 goals in that campaign (Transfermarkt).
Ultimately, the club decided that not even a player of the France captain’s statue could justify the £300m+ outlay that PSG were reportedly seeking. He surely would’ve made Liverpool lethal up front, but thankfully we still boast an attacking wealth which is the envy of most clubs in world football.
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