Liverpool plan for life after Alisson with £30m Giorgi Mamardashvili deal

Georgia international to stay at Valencia on loan this season with Liverpool aware of trouble rivals have faced recruiting goalkeepers

While Liverpool fans crave signings for the here and now, the club’s new sporting director Richard Hughes has put the first piece of the jigsaw in place for the future, executing a succession plan for the day Alisson Becker quits Anfield by agreeing a £30 million deal for Georgian keeper Giorgi Mamardashvili.
Pending a medical, the Valencia stopper will become Arne Slot’s first player signing as Liverpool coach, and that of the new football unit headed by Hughes and FSG football chief executive Michael Edwards, with the Georgia No.1 staying on loan at his current club for this season. Liverpool are paying around £25 million up front, with a further £5 million in add-ons.
How soon Mamardashvili permanently moves to Liverpool rests in the reliable hands of Alisson.
Throughout the talks with Valencia, Liverpool have insisted the deal has no bearing on their current goalkeepers, the club well-stocked with Alisson and Caoimhin Kelleher.
Alisson is under contract until 2027 and – as he revealed during an interview with Sunday newspapers including Telegraph Sport last weekend – is in the mood to continue for the foreseeable future.
But Mamardashvili, 23, is one of the most highly rated young keepers in Europe and his signing represents a shrewd insurance policy for Liverpool, recruiting a player with the potential to be their No.1 by the time Alisson is nearing the end of his current term.
By then, Mamardashvili will have acquired more experience and his value may be greater, and should Alisson’s form continue to make him one of the top five keepers in the world – in many people’s eyes the best of all – the worst-case scenario for Liverpool is they will have two high-class stoppers fighting for their place.
Either way, Liverpool do not want to be in a position where they are frantically seeking a high class new No.1 as and when Alisson decides to end his Premier League career. As his recent comments underlined, there is no sign of that yet, but he revealed the Saudi Arabia Pro League were interested in making him an offer at the end of last season and it would be naive to believe they will not come back.
Alisson committed himself to the new era under Slot, but Liverpool are correct to ready themselves for all possibilities. It was informative that Alisson revealed he was on board with Liverpool pursuing his potential replacement.
“The club needs to prepare for the future,” Alisson said.
“They are doing the right thing from my point of view.”
Securing a young keeper recognised as one of the stand-out performers in Europe is considered good business given the cost of quality keepers in the current market.
Liverpool paid a club record £65 million to sign Alisson from Roma in 2018, a world record for a keeper until Chelsea eclipsed it by recruiting Kepa Arrizabalaga from Athletic Bilbao a week later.
Manchester United paid around £50 million for André Onana, while Arsenal and Chelsea have had difficulty recruiting world-class keepers when seeking for upgrades in recent years.
For Hughes, the signing of Mamardashvili is his first successful transfer negotiation, talks having been ongoing with Valencia for several weeks.
There has been a focus on Liverpool’s lack of signings under the new department, although there has been a continuity of the policy which typified Edwards’ first period overseeing football operations – namely, Liverpool will resist overpaying for targets while showing themselves willing to listen to offers which they believe overvalue squad members.
Hughes said upon joining that the club would be “opportunistic” in Slot’s first transfer window – a reflection that while the squad left by Jürgen Klopp has a couple of defects in need of correction, there are not many.
It remains to be seen if suitable, value-for-money players will be signed in the next few days, all indications being Liverpool will continue to drown out ‘noise’ and stick to their plan to avoid panic and wasting cash that can be used more profitably in the next window or beyond.
In doing so, Edwards is reacquainting himself with a familiar blueprint. Hughes and Slot are effectively starting from scratch with an eye on the future as much as the next four days.