How Successful Have Liverpool's Transfers Been Since 2015?

The Reds' former Director of Research Ian Graham has a method for assessing transfer success. Let's use it to rate the Premier League.

Liverpool fans are eagerly awaiting the debut of record signing Alexander Isak. Nobody can wait to see him tearing it up at Anfield and beyond.

The interest is increased as the Reds recently signed Hugo Ekitike who plays in the same position. Will they line up together? Is the £79m signing from Eintracht Frankfurt now largely a substitute, understudying the former Newcastle striker?

We shall see. No matter how things pan out for the new forwards, Liverpool are undergoing a level of turnover seldom seen in the Premier League.

This notion was put into context by the club’s former Director of Research, Ian Graham. He was recently interviewed in an episode of the Men In Blazers podcast:

“About a quarter of the starts get replaced season to season. So players that weren't at the club or weren't part of any line up last season, they make 25% of the starts on average in the next season… If you're newly promoted, it's like 35% of the starts.”

The Reds will likely pass that latter mark in 2025/26. Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and Florian Wirtz will start most games if they’re fit, while at least one of Ekitike or Isak should be in the XI every week. Alisson’s injury history suggests Giorgi Mamardashvili will get games, with any similar problems in central defence potentially promoting Giovanni Leoni. Defending champions don’t usually make so many alterations to their line up.

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Not that anyone will care if the new players prove their worth. Graham also spoke about his simple measure to determine if a signing has been successful.

“If a transfer comes in and he starts half the league games over the next two seasons, he's a success. So we don't even care if he's any good or not. He just has to get on the pitch. Over the past 10 years, 54% [of the top 100 transfers per season in the big five leagues] have failed.”

This idea also came up in his excellent book, How To Win The Premier League. Graham acknowledged that Paul Tomkins had previously devised a more complicated way to assess success (which is explained in this recent article) though the results were broadly the same. If a club succeeds with even half of their transfers, they’re playing the market pretty well.

It’s easy to assess a club’s success if sticking with the simplistic target of 38 league starts across the first two seasons. As well as Liverpool have done over the last decade, a Premier League title rival has performed slightly better.