Two-year Michael Edwards plan that made Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp £200m with no regrets
Liverpool sold Philippe Coutinho for £142m in January 2018 and have continued to reinvest wisely in the transfer market
It started with Philippe Coutinho and ended, in a slightly less high-profile fashion, with Allan Rodrigues de Souza.
Coutinho, for his part, completed a £142m transfer to Barcelona in January 2018 while Liverpool quietly shipped out Allan - after a series of loan moves - to Atletico Mineiro for a fee in the region of £3m.
As disconnected the career trajectory of the duo may seem, they both form part of a Jurgen Klopp XI that has earned Liverpool £223m over the last two years.
Since the Brazilian departed for the Camp Nou, Klopp has commanded transfer fees for Cameron Brannagan, Danny Ward, Ragnar Klavan, Dominic Solanke, Rafael Camacho, Danny Ings, Simon Mignolet, Ryan Kent, Bobby Duncan and Allan.
Liverpool set to smash Premier League record that can likely never be beaten Raheem Sterling truth emerges as Liverpool answer puts twist on Manchester City rivalryWith money received for loan players, too, the sum received probably totals somewhere in the region of £250m.
Ings, perhaps, is the only player that Klopp might feel a tinge of transfer regret towards but, with the player well-liked amongst players and staff at Melwood, the German will be pleased by his development at Southampton.
Mignolet, too, is performing well with Club Brugge by all accounts but it always felt like he had arrived at the end of his cycle at Anfield.
There will not be a great fear, though, that any players sold during this two-year period will come back to haunt Klopp.
Even Coutinho, the jewel in the crown during his time on Merseyside, has struggled.. His career, somehow, has stagnated to the point where Liverpool look to have earned the better half of the deal.
Good timing, of course, and with a little bit of luck involved too. Coutinho could have gone on to help Barcelona dominate Europe alongside Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.
So too, could Kent have kicked on at Rangers. Solanke, in another universe, scores for fun at Bournemouth and earns a big-money move to a top-six rival. Duncan hits the heights at Fiorentina. Ward stars for club and country at Leicester City.
But this is all fanciful make-believe for now. None of it has come to fruition.
There is still time, of course. But right now Liverpool are singing all the way to the bank.
In selling young players - Klavan and Mignolet aside - there always remains a calculated gamble. Players can hit their prime at different stages and command a better sell-on value than Liverpool received.
Yet nobody is arguing with Edwards and Klopp and their maneuvering within the market. The Coutinho money was reinvested, largely, in the signings of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker.
The duo have propelled Liverpool from top-four challengers to champions of Europe.
There is more in the kitty now after further sales. Takumi Minamino has been swapped, you could theorise, for the £7.5m received when selling Kent to Rangers.
Smart business? You would hope so.
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And so it will begin again this summer. Klopp has profit to spend as more are expected to head for the exit door.
That can only be a good thing if he and Edwards continue reinvesting in a similar manner.