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Liverpool head coach Arne Slot.(Image: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

For someone whose fear of flying is well known in football circles, Richard Hughes has spent the entirety of June helping Liverpool soar to new heights in the transfer window.

After triggering the release clause of Jeremie Frimpong during detailed negotiations with Bayer Leverkusen, the Reds agreed to pay the £29.5m fee across three separate, annual installments for the Netherlands international to become a Liverpool player on June 1 when player trading months officially began.

By that point, talks with the Bundesliga side had stepped up over Florian Wirtz and when the Germany international, who had also been tracked by Manchester City and Bayern Munich, made it clear to all parties, via his representatives, in late May that Liverpool was his preferred destination, Hughes ramped up those discussions with his Leverkusen counterpart Simon Rolfes.



READ MORE:Liverpool midfielder signs long-term contract after rapid progressionREAD MORE:Manchester United legend makes huge Liverpool claim after Florian Wirtz transfer

Around a month of detailed and exhaustive talks led to a breakthrough which will see the Premier League champions pay an initial £100m with a further £16m in success-based add-ons.

"He won't be rushed into doing anything just because of pressure.

"He will have thought about it long and hard about not bringing just anyone in [last summer] but also knowing that Trent, Virgil and Mo were out of contract, so that will have taken priority over things.

"With Florian Wirtz, Milos and Frimpong, that might have been in the background bubbling away, so you talk about short, medium and long term plans, he definitely thought about that process.

"He didn't rush into anything just because of pressure from the fans and his job is to make sure the club has success and it might rub some people up the wrong way in the short term and it might be frustrating in the short term, but if you can have Kerkez, Wirtz, Van Dijk and Salah all in the same building, in the same team, you would say he has job well."

Former Cherries left-back Daniels, who now coaches Watford's Under-21s side, was a team-mate of Hughes for two years at Bournemouth before seeing him return to the club in an executive position prior to the 38-year-old's departure in 2020.

Hughes, who brought two of his team with him from Bournemouth in Craig McKee and Mark Burchill, is something of an Edwards disciple, with the pair striking up a relationship that has endured 20 years, dating back to their time together at Portsmouth.

"He was an experienced player when he came to Bournemouth, he'd been at Portsmouth and Arsenal and obviously knowing him and his persona, the way he conducts himself, I knew he was eventually going to go into that [executive] side rather than the coaching side," Daniels tells the ECHO.

"He is very intelligent, he is very tactful in the way he talks, the way he approaches things and he is well suited.

As you can see from his time at Bournemouth and what he is doing now at Liverpool, he is very forward-thinking in the way he goes about his business.

"He was forward thinking as a player and even back then, he was very close with Eddie Howe and Michael Edwards, all together.

And if you look at the business he has done so far with Liverpool this summer, he has done a good job and as I said, he listens to the managers, he understands what the manager needs but he also understands what the football club needs as well, not only at the present moment but also in the future as well.

But back to the recruitment side of things, it's just testament to how well the club is run, the process they go through, the scouting that goes into it and the due diligence and then ultimately the finances that they come up with."

Daniels continues: "I think, like I said, Hughesy is doing a great job so far and I think to get Wirtz over the line is a great signing with the competition that he had (to sign him).

"I think Milos will be a good signing as well, fans should be really excited by how much he'll attack and how much he'll join in.

"You talk about high energy and Liverpool and especially on counter-attacks, Milos is going to be one of those because he will fly.

It's been a good summer, Liverpool had a couple of years with the redevelopment of the stadium and how much that cost and they probably had to wait a little bit for the revenue to come in from that.

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"Once you can spend, then there's no doubt the owners wouldn't spend, it was a case of the timing more than anything."


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