Michael Edwards has made an absolute fortune for Liverpool by selling off strikers for far more than they were worth at the time.
It’s insane but Liverpool have made over £70 million from the sales of Christian Benteke, Dominic Solanke and Rhian Brewster.
In other words, Edwards, the Reds’ director of football, knows how to get a stunning deal for the Anfield club when it comes to strikers.
But he was always going to get one wrong eventually and maybe, just maybe, Taiwo Awoniyi is the blot on the copy.
That’s because the Nigerian hitman is proving a revelation in Germany with Union Berlin.
Mistake?
Since joining the Bundesliga side for £6.5 million in July, the 24-year-old has netted eight goals in all competitions.
For context, Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota have only managed six between them in 15 games this season.
That isn’t to say that Awoniyi is better than Firmino or Jota, but surely he would’ve offered more to Jurgen Klopp this season than, say, Divock Origi, who has played 183 minutes of Premier League football in 13 months.
And ironically this was the year when Awoniyi was finally granted a work permit to play for Liverpool in competitive games, but the club took the £6.5 million.
The only slight consolation for the Merseysiders is that Edwards included a 10 percent sell-on clause, meaning that the club will pick up more money if and when Berlin sell him for a profit, which already looks inevitable.
But business-wise, the Reds could and probably would’ve made much more money on the lad if they used him as a plan-b option to Firmino or Jota and he impressed.
Six-foot tall and built like a bulldozer, Awoniyi has physical qualities that no other attacking player in Klopp’s squad has and that fact alone could’ve made him a useful alternative.
There’s no denying that Liverpool and Edwards have pulled down a lot of clubs’ pants in the transfer market, but on this occasion they might’ve got a taste of their own medicine.
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