Alexander Isak doesn't have to worry about what I went through at Liverpool

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TV revenues have transformed the English game, making the Premier League the envy of domestic competitions around the world and allowing its club to spend like never before.Indeed, the £3.19bn shelled out by top-flight teams this summer smashed the previous record of £2.46bn set in 2023.But it is still rare for the British transfer record for an individual transfer record to be broken, which is what Liverpool did on deadline day when they signed Isak in a blockbusting £125m deal from Newcastle United.Indeed, it was only the 12th time in the past 30 years that it has happened. However, the rise in the record fee set has been incredible.READ MORE: Steve Parish explains real reason Marc Guehi Liverpool transfer collapsed - 'Based on advice'READ MORE: Liverpool signed best young player in world in club-record transferRewind back to 1995 and Liverpool were also sending shockwaves through English football by signing Stan Collymore from Nottingham Forest for £8.5m.Collymore dazzled in his first season at Anfield, striking up an exciting 55-goal partnership with Robbie Fowler that raised hope that the Reds could end their wait to win the rebranded Premier League for the first time.The duo added a further 47 goals in their second season together but, with Roy Evans’ side finishing one place further down the table in fourth, and Michael Owen emerging on to the scene, Collymore was sold to Aston Villa for £7m.Back then the pressure on Liverpool to stem Manchester United’s increasing dominance was huge.Now, Isak joins a squad that won the Premier League at a canter last season and still retains key players from the Jurgen Klopp era who have won every major trophy there is to win in club football.Still, the prodigiously talented Sweden international would not be human if he hadn’t thought about his record-breaking fee, surely?

Or in some way have been impacted by the way the drawn-out transfer saga played out?Collymore, who has walked in Isak’s shoes, said: “I think that the difference between breaking the transfer record as I did 30 years ago and now is that it’s hard to adjust for inflation and work out how similar the deals were.“Kieran Maguire (football finance expert) worked out that an inflation-adjusted figure for all the transfers has Alan Shearer at £250m to Newcastle, and my move to Liverpool was maybe £216m, so my transfer fee was really a massive outlier back then in a way that Isak’s isn’t.“At the time, I was breaking the £7m record for Andy Cole to Manchester United from the season before, and maybe Roy Keane before that from Forest to United.“So, while there are incremental jumps these days, back then the increases were more like leaps, the equivalent of going from £150m to £300m within the course of a season or two.“Now though I don’t think it (the size of the transfer fee) matters. And he needs to hit the ground running because if he hits the ground running, Liverpool fans will forget about all the shenanigans with Newcastle.“It’s going to be about four to six weeks down the line when we’ll know how it’s going for Isak at Liverpool.

There are so many financial juggernauts in the Premier League that the fees are just baked in.“It wasn’t like that for me at Liverpool.”Isak and Florian Wirtz, who arrived for an initial £100m from Bayer Leverkusen in June, were the headline transfers in a summer of unprecedented spending for the Reds.The Premier League champions splashed out a record £446m in the window but, as Arne Slot has quite rightly been keen to point out in press conferences, more than half of that outcome was funded by player sales totalling £228m.That said, Liverpool did want to do one more deal before the window closed on September 1, only for Crystal Palace to call off the departure of their captain Marc Guehi at the last minute.With the England international set to be out of contract at the end of the season, the Reds currently have no intention of making a fresh bid in January.But with the future of Ibrahima Konate uncertain - the France international is also out of contract in the summer and has been heavily linked to Real Madrid - Collymore believes that situation could change.“One of the reasons why Liverpool wanted to go in for Marc Guehi was probably to have their back-up ready in case Konate didn’t sign a new contract in the summer,” said Collymore to 10bet Casino.“I think the club will probably have Guehi on the backburner for the summer to replace Konate, and I think Arne Slot has already hinted they might make another move for him in January and not even wait.“That move will depend on Crystal Palace and their progress in Europe. I think Konate is a good centre-back, but he’s not a great central defender and Liverpool could find six, seven, eight options from around Europe, from the Premier League, from La Liga, from Serie A, from the Bundesliga that would be better central defenders to partner Virgil van Dijk.“So, for me, I've always looked at this situation and gone, this isn't something to be terrified about.“This is just something where Liverpool needs to be proactive and bring somebody in.