Marc Guehi transfer power has shifted as Liverpool consider January options

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Liverpool will be aiming to complete deals for Alexander Isak and Marc Guehi on deadline day(Image: Getty Images)

In a summer that has seen questions emerge over how much power and agency a player actually has on their own future, Liverpool's deadline day dealings acted as evidence for both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, Alexander Isak was so determined to leave Newcastle United that he was able to engineer his departure despite having three years left on a contract at a club who were desperate to keep him.

Newcastle were so steadfast in their refusal to budge, in fact, that some reports emerging from those close to the club were bombastic in their insistence that Isak was in fact going nowhere.



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But when the bell tolled and the window 'slammed' shut, as it invariably does, Isak was being paraded around Liverpool's £50m AXA Training Centre and posing for photos with his new No.9 shirt.

"A tricky summer" was the deliberately delicate understatement from Isak when speaking publicly for the first time since the saga began to unravel in July, but the Sweden international's move to Merseyside has torched his legacy on Tyneside.

For the best player and top scorer in a squad that ended a 70-wait for a domestic trophy while qualifying for the Champions League last term is quite some doing, especially when you consider how utterly en thrall Magpies fans have been to their star strikers, historically.

Even more so when you factor in it was Isak's goal at Wembley that was ultimately the difference between them and Liverpool on that day in March.

But the hottest love has the coldest ending, and Isak used every tool at his disposal to wrench himself from the Gallowgate's bosom, sealing a British record deal at £125m on deadline day and ending an affair that had become tawdry and tedious by the end, certainly for those watching at a distance.

That Isak was able to effectively go on strike to get his dream move with three years left on his contract has given credence to the idea that it is player power that rules in the modern age, but the flipside to that is what happened with Marc Guehi on the same day.

Having kept a dignified and respectful silence on speculation all summer, Guehi was undergoing a medical in London on Monday afternoon while talks raged behind the scenes between Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner and chairman Steve Parish.

Parish, as he conceded in Wembley's post-match mixed zone to reporters at the Community Shield, was of the belief that the FA Cup holders were simply not in a position to countenance a player of Guehi's value and importance leaving for nothing, so a sale was in the best interests, even if done so reluctantly.

Glasner, with little thought to business and long-term financial health of the club, came at the topic with a coach's eye, insisting it was too late to source a replacement of adequate quality for a 25-year-old England international who had captained Palace to the FA Cup just a few months ago.

It's here where the sticking point was found for Guehi and with Glasner widely reported to have threatened to himself quit if the defender was sold, Parish and the Palace board recongised that losing the skipper and the manager from the side that had won the only major trophy in the club's history just a few months earlier for an already knock-down price of £35m made little sense.

As a result, he missed out on his dream move and the exit video that had been produced by the club's media team is now on ice until at least January.

Guehi in this particular situation had nowhere near the power that we're told Isak had wielded.

But the Liverpool target is about to be handed that same control now for what is certain to be his final campaign at Selhurst Park on the other side of the international break.

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Perversely, it is the professionalism shown by the centre-back throughout is what has inevitably led to him missing out on his move and while he will earn plenty of plaudits for the optics of that, it was no surprise to read of an unhappy response from the man himself to the fallout from Monday night from those well connected in south London on Tuesday.

The Three Lions defender will hold all the cards from January, however, and while Liverpool remain frontrunners to eventually take him to Anfield, the major question now is simply whether it is in the winter window for a further reduced price or next summer for nothing.