Liverpool's £615m Man Utd gulf shows scale of task for Michael Edwards' replacement

Liverpool have now completed their final window with sporting director Michael Edwards still at the helm.

After more than 10 years at Anfield, Edwards announced that he would be stepping down from his role at the end of the season.

“Ten years, that’s a pretty long time in anyone’s working life,” he wrote in an open letter to Liverpool supporters in November. “In football terms, it is an era in itself, particularly at a club like Liverpool where the expectations and standards are never anything other than as high as the supporters deserve.”

And the ‘Michael Edwards era’ will go down as one of the most successful in the illustrious history of English football’s most decorated club.

Appointed in 2011, the 42-year-old has helped re-establish the Reds as one of the top clubs in Europe, whilst also leaving major fingerprints on their first domestic title in a generation.

Edwards’ list of transfer hits is a staggering one - Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Alisson Becker, Andy Robertson and many more were masterminded by the transfer supremo, who will now be one of the most sought after executives in the game.

But it’s not only the arrivals that have seen Liverpool stand-out from their rivals off-the-field. Edwards, along with manager Jurgen Klopp, have known when to cut bait from their own players, even some of their biggest stars.

Philippe Coutinho is of course the best example of that - squeezing every penny out of Barcelona in the drawn-out transfer saga, eventually fetching almost £150million.

Luis Suarez made the same journey in 2014, signing for the Blaugrana in a deal worth £65million. When it became clear Raheem Sterling had his eye on the exit, he managed to get £57million from Premier League rivals