The signs that Liverpool were set to sign Kylian Mbappe in 2022 after Jurgen Klopp move, but ended up with Darwin Nunez instead

Kylian Mbappe will probably never be able to fulfill his mother’s wish of playing for the red shirt of Liverpool, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t come close.

The Frenchman ended one of the most predictable transfer sagas in football history with his move to Real Madrid this summer, but interest from Anfield remained throughout his career.

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When Mbappe left Monaco in 2017, Liverpool almost signed him as Jürgen Klopp was in talks with the striker.

Signing the then 18-year-old with a lower salary but high potential was a transfer that American club owners like to make.

John W. Henry, head of the Fenway Sports Group, held a two-hour meeting with Mbappe’s family in his private jet over the Bay of Nice.

However, since the player preferred to stay in his home country, his youth club Paris Saint-Germain won the race for his signature.

His subsequent rise to become the face of European football in the post-Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo era should have put an end to any rumours that Liverpool’s owners FSG, the king of net spending, would sanction future transfers.

However, the connection between Mbappe and Merseyside became even closer during his time at PSG – helped by a public rapprochement.

The Parisian media outlet L’Equipe sensationally claimed that the 25-year-old had made a verbal agreement to move to Liverpool two years ago.

Mbappe is said to have agreed a short-term deal at Anfield before signing a two-year contract extension with PSG in 2022.

The Ligue 1 giants were keen to avoid any dealings with Madrid if they were forced to sell in the summer, but a clause was reportedly inserted into Mbappe’s contract with Liverpool to facilitate a future move to the Bernabeu.

Does this all sound too fantastic to be true? Maybe, but let’s look at the evidence that might prove that the signs may have been there all along…

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Klopp’s early contract extension “good for transfer window”

In April 2022, Klopp delighted Liverpool fans by announcing that he had signed a two-year contract extension.

His contract would not have expired until 2024 – ironically, he decided to leave the club anyway – but the timing is significant.

The future of long-standing German strikers Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane was much more pressing as the trio were approaching the final year of their contracts.

Additionally, with the three attackers approaching or having already celebrated their 30th birthdays at the time – which is historically the time when Liverpool’s FSG owners get nervous about pay rises – a decision had to be made as to whether they would sign new contracts or move on rather than risk losing them for free in 2023.

So why these accelerated negotiations and the announcement of a contract extension with Klopp?

A day before Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Newcastle on April 30, Klopp claimed it would “make sense” to confirm his commitment to the club before the end of the season, revealing it could benefit the club’s transfer business in the summer.

Mbappe: “My mum loves Liverpool”

Just 24 days after the Reds coach’s comments, Mbappe admitted in an interview that he had held talks with the club.

“We talked a little bit, but not too much. We talked a little bit,” Mbappe told The Telegraph. “I talked to Liverpool because it’s my mother’s favourite club; my mother loves Liverpool. I don’t know why, you have to ask her.”

“It’s a good club and we met them five years ago. I met them when I was in Monaco. It’s a big club.”

Klopp’s future would undoubtedly have been discussed in these negotiations for 2022 – Mbappe is a big fan of the 57-year-old, whose influence on any move to the Premier League cannot be underestimated.

Before Liverpool’s match against PSG in 2018, Klopp told RMC Sport: “Honestly, I love him. What a player he is and a nice boy, so he’s a really good boy. What a player, what a player.”

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His assessment in 2022 that his personal contract extension would help the transfer business may have been a subtle hint to Mbappe, as talks were ongoing at the time.

Big decision – Salah or Mbappe?

Liverpool would also have had to find replacements to compensate for the potential loss of Mané and Salah, who not only earn more than Firmino but could also each fetch a higher transfer fee.

The former moved to FC Bayern Munich in June this year and the latter almost followed his fellow winger home in the same month.

Salah’s lawyer and adviser Ramy Abbas Issa said in a 2023 Harvard Business School study that Liverpool were “very far apart” in contract negotiations and he feared there would be no breakthrough.

In July, the Egyptian finally became the highest-paid player in the club’s history with a weekly salary of over £350,000.

These sums would not have been possible with Mbappe as a contractual partner and the delay in agreeing on the terms had nothing to do with disputes over the finer details.

As Salah’s agent said for the Harvard study and reported by the Times: “Mohamed is not going to throw out his contract because of a 5 percent difference between what we are asking for and what they are willing to give – it is much more than that.”

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Change of plan and new recruitment

Let’s take a look at Liverpool’s new signings this summer. Before the panicked loan of Arthur Melo on deadline day, only three high-profile players were added.

Two of them were teenagers at the time: right-back Calvin Ramsay, who came for £6.5 million, and Fabio Carvalho from Fulham.

The other was Darwin Nunez, who became the club’s record transfer when he joined from Benfica for up to £85 million in June.

Liverpool are used to spending big money on players they believe are worth the money, but each time before, the Uruguayan has been better prepared.

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The Reds had had their sights set on Alisson Becker since his time at Brazilian club Internacional on the advice of their former star Doni before shelling out a world record transfer fee for a goalkeeper in 2018.

The club were so sure of themselves with Virgil van Dijk that after Southampton initially blocked any move, they waited another six months rather than focus on another defender.

Nunez, then 22, had only two seasons in the top flight behind him, but was still expected to have a similarly transformative impact on Liverpool’s attack as he had on the defence.

However, the situation with the departures of Mane, Divock Origi and Takumi Minamino and the deadlock in contract negotiations with Salah and Firmino (the latter left for free the following summer) was such that the club could not afford to take a risk to continue the fight against Manchester City, who had just presented Erling Haaland.

But Nunez, who could not even understand Klopp and needed a translator, was seen as a long-term project that would need time to adjust, unlike any of Liverpool’s other expensive signings.

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Klopp pushed hard for his transfer after being impressed by the striker’s performance in the Champions League quarter-final against Benfica.

Nunez scored both home and away in Benfica’s 4-6 aggregate defeat to Liverpool in… you guessed it… April 2022.

Liverpool later signed Cody Gakpo before the end of the year for a transfer fee of between £35 million and £45 million, after avoiding competition from Manchester United and Leeds for his services six months earlier.

So that’s over £100 million for two players who can play both centrally and on the left, and almost £500,000 a week in wages, including the cost of Nunez’s arrival and Salah’s contract extension…

Maybe the whole thing wasn’t so far-fetched after all?