Bellingham Deal Decoy? Or Spend £130m on Other Players? Either Way Seems Win-Win

Any new top-class midfielders will help the Reds

As I noted on the Main Hub, the news about the Reds apparently pulling out of the race for Jude Bellingham makes sense in a number of ways; but equally, it occurs to me now that so would a gentleman's agreement to step back until Dortmund's league title race is concluded one way or the other, to let the player focus on that.

I have no insider info on this, other than some people who know some people, telling me what they know.

They think the deal is still a goer, but equally, it makes sense to totally pull out if – rather than stepping back to let the player and his club focus on trying to win the league – the Reds know that Dortmund are going to drive a hard bargain, ramp it up into a messy auction, and drag it out all summer. Liverpool need to act swiftly, before preseason, to tie up deals and start getting the team to gel.

I thought it was worth a special ZenDen piece to make my latest thoughts clearer, rather than the comments I have spread out across the Main Hub on the issue.

I'll expand on those comments and put them into one article below, plus I’ll go on to discuss some ideas on how the squad might look next season, and what I see as a few blessings in disguise. These ZenDen articles are not for commenting on, but just for reading in peace.