Liverpool are entering the new season with more questions than answers, as uncertainty surrounds the club from the dressing room to the boardroom following Friday's deal that saw Fenway Sports Group sell a 30% stake to a consortium led by Amit Bhatia.
New coach, new era
Andoni Iraola is preparing to sign off from his first pre-season as Liverpool head coach, with the club rarely having entered a campaign with so much to resolve. The issues surrounding Iraola are relatively straightforward: he is a new coach taking on the biggest role of his career, and there are always going to be debates as to how he will handle the step up in size of the club, and specifically how he can move this team past an ordinary, underwhelming year under the previous regime.
Can Iraola inject some fire and brimstone into a group of players who looked so passive and under-cooked across the 2025/26 season? And can he instil the sort of intensity for which Liverpool have become renowned across most of the last decade?
Transfer window concerns
There is a little over a week to go until the Reds begin the ascent to St James Park for their season opener with Newcastle United, but the Mohamed Salah-shaped hole on the right side of their attack still looms ominously. It is now five months since the Egyptian confirmed last season would be his last, and the sign of a replacement is seemingly no nearer, despite the deluge of daily 'updates' regarding Bradley Barcola of Paris Saint-Germain.
There are also the uncertain futures of players like Cody Gakpo and Curtis Jones, while it is unclear what exactly the plans are for Federico Chiesa and Harvey Elliott too. At a certain point, Liverpool must stop entertaining talk of players leaving and ensure that Iraola has a group at his disposal that affords him every opportunity of moving past a bruising and at times harrowing period.
Ownership questions
The real apprehension among supporters right now extends far beyond the ins and outs of the transfer window and whether a new coach can transform the playing style. They are of a much graver nature and pertain to the club's ownership. Neither Fenway Sports Group nor the Amit Bhatia-led consortium had been willing to divulge specifics prior to confirmation of their investment, but the development only leads to more questions for now.
The agreement will see the Amazon founder - and the world's third richest man, by most recent tally - Jeff Bezos arrive with Eduardo Saverin, a figure so influential in his field that he was once portrayed by Andrew Garfield in the movie The Social Network. Neither Bezos nor Saverin are on the new-look Reds board, but they will undoubtedly look to have their say behind the scenes as the club open themselves up to new markets in the coming months and years, particularly given they are represented at Anfield by Bryan Baum and Elaine Saverin, respectively.
Quite what the Harvard-educated, co-founder of Facebook, Saverin, wants as a minority owner of Liverpool besides the obvious is anyone's guess right now. The same applies to Bezos and his £204billion personal fortune. It is impossible wealth and without a history of owning sports franchises or football clubs, it's easy to see why there is some suspicion.
Financial backdrop
There is at least a bit more surety in the news that Amit Bhatia, after nearly 20 years of involvement at Queens Park Rangers, is now on the board as the club's new vice-chairman. FSG have never shied away from their search for external investment and gently kicked the tyres on a full sale in late 2022 before a deal was struck with Dynasty Equity, which was worth roughly between £80m and £120m in 2023.
The multi-club model, pursued after a restructuring in 2024, eventually came to nothing, and while the club's revenues broke the £700m barrier for the first time in history in January, its current financial results saw a profit of just £8m after tax. For a club bound by the strictly self-sustaining model imposed, that essentially means every pound has been reinvested, but last season's groundbreaking £450m transfer spend has potentially had lasting ramifications over in Boston.
Maybe, as clubs become more comfortable with routinely paying over £100m for players, there is also an admission that additional capital and expertise are a must to keep Liverpool at the sharp end of the sport. All of that, right now, remains guesswork. As a result, from the boardroom to the dressing room, the Reds are hurtling towards a new season with more questions than answers.
