Liverpool truly signed a star worth nearly €200m at the last possible moment. It's an incredible deal in hindsight.
Liverpool are currently working on a deal for Bradley Barcola with Paris Saint-Germain. The big problem is that PSG want a sensational amount for their third-choice winger - around €180m, per reports.
The Athletic are among those quoting that figure. It's truly bizarre, really, as this would be the third most-expensive transfer of all time for a player who doesn't even start big games for his club.
Still, if that's who Liverpool want, that's who they want, and they'll be at least tempted to pay the money to get him. Even if they'll certainly attempt to talk PSG down a bit.
But this is really just a consequence of a crazy summer of spending. We've seen Elliot Anderson, a fantastic player but one without UEFA Champions League experience or anything beyond two years of good football, go for £116m.
Morgan Rogers, another great player but one you'd struggle to put up there with the very best in the world, has moved for £117m. That's why PSG are claiming Barcola is worth £145m - they feel he's considerably more proven than those two.
And they're right, to be fair. It's just that those fees were completely insane and the Barcola one more so. Overall, though, this just makes us grateful that Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz a year ago.
Wirtz, after all, has a CV that's far above any of these players. He was voted the best player in Germany by his peers, ahead of Harry Kane, through his last season in the Bundesliga. And that arguably wasn't even his best season - Wirtz was the best player at Bayer Leverkusen as they won the title in 2024.
There is no question, then, that Liverpool would be paying far beyond the £100m they put up front in order to get Wirtz this summer. You'd be looking at Barcola money, in fact, as the 23-year-old is light-years ahead of the rest in terms of proven quality.
Now, Wirtz didn't put up his best performances last season as he battled in a struggling Liverpool side that wasn't remotely set up to make the best of him. The hope now is that Andoni Iraola does a far better job of that than Arne Slot did.
And funnily enough, securing Barcola and giving Liverpool more pace out wide would go a long, long way towards doing that. Wirtz needs the game to be a bit more stretched - the Frenchman does just that.
Give him the right tools and there's no question that Wirtz will return to his best form. Form that this summer would be valued at €180m. Maybe even more.
