Missed opportunity: Departing Liverpool chief pushed for them to sign £60m Manchester City star

Former Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes reportedly pushed for the £60m transfer of Antoine Semenyo before he ended up at Manchester City.

In what looks like the ultimate missed opportunity for the Reds, it seems they were advised to pursue a deal for Semenyo while he had a £60m release clause at Hughes’ former club Bournemouth.

Hughes will have known all about the Ghana international’s quality, but it seems his message, reported by the Athletic, fell on deaf ears as Man City instead won the race for his signature.

Semenyo has gone on to shine for City, scoring 11 goals in 32 appearances since joining, including the winning goal against Chelsea in last season’s FA Cup final.

Antoine Semenyo was the perfect Mohamed Salah replacement

Liverpool ended up paying almost double what Semenyo would have cost for Bradley Barcola this summer, so it’s clear that this decision cost them.

While Barcola may well prove to be the better player eventually, for now it looks like more of a gamble as the France international was not even a regular starter at Paris Saint-Germain, and has never played in the Premier League before.

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Semenyo, by contrast, was very clearly establishing himself as one of the top attacking talents in the English top flight prior to his move to City.

With Mohamed Salah clearly ageing and looking past his best last season, it looked a no-brainer to bring in Semenyo to replace him as the focal point of the LFC attack last January.

There’ll no doubt be other clubs that could also have done well to sign Semenyo for such a relatively low fee, with the market exploding since then.

Liverpool will perhaps be particularly frustrated, however, as Hughes was a good connection to Bournemouth who could surely have helped them into pole position for Semenyo if they’d pursued him.