Alexander Isak Caps Liverpool’s Perfect Window and EPL’s Crazy Summer

KIRKBY, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 01: Alexander Isak signs for Liverpool FC at AXA Training Centre on September 01, 2025 in Kirkby, England. (Photo by Nikki Dyer – LFC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Liverpool FC via Getty Images

Winning the transfer window is the most ephemeral of titles, but in Liverpool’s case it could well translate to more tangible success later this season.

By signing Alexander Isak from Newcastle on transfer deadline day for £125m ($167m), the Premier League champions set a new British record, surpassing a benchmark they set in June when they acquired Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for £116.5m ($156m).

Fenway Sports Group sanctioned all of the three most expensive signings in the Premier League this summer, with Hugo Ekitike following Isak and Wirtz to Anfield for a relatively modest £79m ($106m) from Eintracht Frankfurt.

Isak’s arrival took Liverpool’s summer expenditure to £446.5m ($598m), the most any club has ever spent in a single window.

To put the outlay into context, Liverpool alone have spent nearly as much as Ligue 1, LaLiga and the Bundesliga, three of Europe’s traditional big five leagues.

Some £475.9m ($637m) were spent on transfer fees in France, while the spending in Spain came in at £500.3m ($700m) and German clubs splurged a combined £563.7m ($754.7m) on players.

The Premier League transfer window in numbers

Serie A was next with £896.4m ($1.2bn), while the Premier League continued to operate in a different financial sphere with clubs spending a record £3.11bn ($4.16bn) on players.

The sum represents a 55 percent year-on-year increase and illustrates the frenetic nature of this transfer window, one which did nothing to dispel the feeling Premier League clubs appear to have more money than sense at times.

But even the league’s biggest detractors would find it difficult to argue with Liverpool’s business.

If the arrivals of Isak, Wirtz and Ekitike should make an already potent forward line even better and less reliant on the brilliance of Mohamed Salah, the signings of Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong revamped Liverpool’s options at full-back.

If there is an area where the Reds are perhaps vulnerable is the centre-back position, which they would have strengthened had their deal for Crystal Palace captain Mark Guehi gone through.

As it happened, last season’s FA Cup winners accepted Liverpool’s £35m ($46.9m) bid for the England defender, but the move collapsed on deadline day once it became apparent Palace did not have a replacement lined up.

The Premier League champions did sign teenage defender Giovanni Leoni from Serie A side Parma, who will bolster Arne Slot’s options at centre-back.

The most striking aspect of Liverpool’s spending spree is that it came after they won a record-equalling 20th league title at a canter last season.

In the immediate aftermath of the Reds’ triumph, Slot suggested the summer would hold an evolution rather than a revolution.

“Radical changes, you will probably not see,” he said.

“That [radical changes] would be a bit weird if you won the league.”

But radical changes did come. This summer marks the first time since 2018 and only the second since the turn of the century that the Reds have been the biggest spenders in the Premier League.

Liverpool’s splurge is a statement of intent

Their largesse was partly financed by recouping £190m ($254m) in player sales, with Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Ben Doak, Jarell Quansah among those who left Anfield for a lucrative fee in the summer.

For example, Arsenal’s outgoings came in at almost £200m ($267m) less than Liverpool, but at £245m ($328m) their net spend – the difference between the amount spent on players and the fees received for player sales – was higher than their rivals’.

Chelsea, Manchester United and Newcastle all spent north of £230m ($308m) on players, with the latter pair recouping £61m ($81.7m) and £157m ($210m) in sales, while the Blues made more than any other Premier League in trading players for a total of £300m ($401.6m).

But back to Liverpool, the logic question after such a splurge is whether Isak is worth the investment?

The Premier League champions spent most of the summer chasing the Sweden international, who effectively went on strike to force a move out of Newcastle.

Isak, who was under contract for two more years at St James’ Park, pulled out of Newcastle’s pre-season tour to Singapore and South Korea and sat out their first three Premier League fixtures.

But while the 25-year-old may have burned his bridges in the northeast of England, from a footballing standpoint he remains as close to a safe investment as there is.

Isak scored 27 goals for Newcastle in all competitions last season, including in the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool as the Magpies won their first major trophy in 56 years.

Over the past two seasons, the Swede has scored 44 goals in the Premier League, a tally bettered only by Salah and Erling Haaland with 47 and 49 respectively.

Will Alexander Isak fit in at Liverpool?

Last season, Isak rattled in 23 league goals, a career best and he also became the first Newcastle player to score in eight consecutive Premier League games.

Club legend Alan Shearer managed to find the net in seven consecutive fixtures in the 1996-97 season, a record which was equalled by Joe Willock in the 2020-21 campaign.

Crucially, the Swede is as lethal in the box as is from long range and his arrival adds even more versatility to what already was arguably the best frontline in the Premier League.

The challenge for Slot is to now get a tune out of his array of attacking options, without disrupting the chemistry he developed in his first season at Anfield.

In that respect, the Dutchman will hope Jurgen Klopp’s words from a decade ago do not turn out to prove a prescient warning.

“If you bring one player in for $100m or whatever and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney,” Slot’s predecessor said.

And yet, as the Premier League goes into the first international break of the season, Liverpool are already alone at the top of the table after beating Arsenal 1-0 on Sunday afternoon.

Isak may take some time settling in, but Liverpool will take some stopping.