You’d have thought the main story on deadline day would have been Liverpool smashing the British transfer record for the second time in one window to finally secure Alexander Isak from Newcastle. Instead, it was the deal that the الدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز champions didn’t get over the line that has dominated the headlines and discourse.
With a few hours to spare before the window closed, Liverpool reached a long-awaited agreement with كريستال بالاس to sign Marc Guehi, who the club were actively looking to sell as he entered the final 12 months of his contract with little desire to pen an extension. By around 4pm, three hours ahead of the deadline, he was undergoing a medical at the Merseysiders’ London headquarters.
Alas, Palace pulled the plug even after a deal sheet had been submitted to the Premier League after failing to procure a replacement. Their top target, Igor Julio of rivals برايتون, opted to join West Ham on loan instead, scuppering Guehi’s chance to move to Anfield for at least the majority of the 2025-26 season.
Guehi is, unsurprisingly, said to have been furious for having this opportunity denied at the very last minute. In the immediate aftermath, there will be heartache and regret that he maybe didn’t handle the situation better – acting a model professional in contrast to Isak and Yoane Wissa, who did get their respective moves on Monday evening – but there are still silver linings. In fact, Guehi could still stand to hugely benefit from how this saga has unfolded.
You’d have thought the main story on deadline day would have been Liverpool smashing the British transfer record for the second time in one window to finally secure Alexander Isak from Newcastle. Instead, it was the deal that the Premier League champions didn’t get over the line that has dominated the headlines and discourse.
With a few hours to spare before the window closed, Liverpool reached a long-awaited agreement with Crystal Palace to sign Marc Guehi, who the club were actively looking to sell as he entered the final 12 months of his contract with little desire to pen an extension. By around 4pm, three hours ahead of the deadline, he was undergoing a medical at the Merseysiders’ London headquarters.
Alas, Palace pulled the plug even after a deal sheet had been submitted to the Premier League after failing to procure a replacement. Their top target, Igor Julio of rivals Brighton, opted to join West Ham on loan instead, scuppering Guehi’s chance to move to Anfield for at least the majority of the 2025-26 season.
Guehi is, unsurprisingly, said to have been furious for having this opportunity denied at the very last minute. In the immediate aftermath, there will be heartache and regret that he maybe didn’t handle the situation better – acting a model professional in contrast to Isak and Yoane Wissa, who did get their respective moves on Monday evening – but there are still silver linings. In fact, Guehi could still stand to hugely benefit from how this saga has unfolded.
The Premier League’s grip on the global market has never been tighter. According to Transfermarkt nine of the top 10 spending clubs for the 2025 window hailed from England, with باير ليفركوزن – who sold Florian Wirtz to Liverpool for £117 million ($157m), among others – the only exception.
Had Guehi’s move gone through, Palace would have pocketed £35m ($47m). In isolation, that’s not an overly extravagant sum to part with for a player in the final year of his contract, but that still seemed too hefty an investment for the elite clubs on the continent to throw their respective hats into the ring for.
صحيفة الغارديان report that Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus are among the teams who ‘expressed an interest’ in acquiring Guehi, though couldn’t stump up the cash needed to trigger an exit this year. Per those statistics from Transfermarkt Barca, infamously hampered by financial restrictions, ranked 80th on their list of summer spenders, with Bayern coming in at 39th and Juve at 18th. Three of the world’s biggest sporting institutions were outspent considerably by newly-promoted سندرلاند.
If Guehi indeed doesn’t sign a new deal at Palace, he will be able to freely negotiate with foreign clubs in January, potentially pocketing a more lucrative signing-on bonus for his troubles of staying at Selhurst Park a little while longer. These elite sides are becoming more inclined to poaching from the Premier League’s mid-table, and there won’t be shortage of suitors at home or on the continent for his services.
Guehi formed a crucial part of the England core that reached the Euro 2024 final last summer. He only missed one match, their 2-1 win over Netherlands in the semi-finals, due to suspension for an accumulation of yellow cards. On that occasion, he was replaced in the starting XI by Ezri Konsa, before being reinstated in place of the أستون فيلا defender for the final.
However, he has scarcely featured for the Three Lions under Thomas Tuchel, playing in only one of the German’s four games in charge thus far. Ironically, Konsa appears to be the new lynchpin, starting three of those matches, while Dan Burn has started alongside him in two. Part of this is down to a lack of luck, with a head injury sustained in May’s FA Cup final ruling Guehi out of England’s June internationals.
Regardless, the competition for places at centre-back is on. Konsa, Burn, John Stones and Jarell Quansah are the other centre-backs that have been called into September’s squad, while it’s difficult to rule out Harry Maguire’s prospects of being on the plane next summer given his previous importance to England and resurgent reputation at Manchester متحد.
Tuchel clearly has his favourites, as demonstrated by calling up his former Chelsea player Reece James over Trent Alexander-Arnold and bringing Ruben Loftus-Cheek back into the international fold for the first time in six years. If Konsa is really the manager’s top option, then Guehi’s best chance of wrestling back his place will be through consistent game time as a starter. That could have transpired at Liverpool, but with Ibrahima Konate also fighting for minutes, he could have been in and out of Arne Slot’s line up in a season where he needs maximum exposure.
Much has been made of Liverpool’s extraordinary transfer window, one which culminated with signing one of the best strikers in the world to take their spending over the £400m mark. Regardless, they were still lackadaisical when it came to closing a deal for one of their other primary targets.
The club’s pursuit of Isak was complex given the numbers involved and Newcastle’s public stance that they were not interested in selling him. In the case of Guehi, Palace were openly telling the world they needed to cash in. Chairman Steve Parish said after their Community Shield victory over the Reds on August 10: “For players of that calibre to leave on a free, it’s a problem. No doubt about it, unfortunately.”
Liverpool started formal talks with Palace soon after that meeting at Wembley, while at the same time wrapped up a deal for Italian wonderkid Giovanni Leoni. It shouldn’t have taken them nearly three weeks to come to an agreement on a fee. Whether Palace should have had a successor for Guehi lined up before deadline day is another issue, but the Reds’ top brass needed to be in control of their own situation, and instead they ceded it to Parish.
It’s not necessary for the clubs at the top of the food chain to ‘win’ every transfer dealing. If they get their target at a price that seems fair, that’s all that matters. Unfortunately for Liverpool, they ‘lost’ both the player and the deal at a time where they needed another body for their backline.
One way or another, Palace have shot themselves in the foot. Guehi is not going to sign a new contract, and they will either lose him in January on a cut-price deal or in summer 2026 for nothing at all. For a mid-table club with European aspirations to lose such an asset in these circumstances is concerning, yet it may well be cancelled out by another layer of incompetence.
Oliver Glasner reportedly threatened to stand down as manager if Parish sanctioned the sale of Guehi without acquiring a replacement. The squad barely has enough centre-backs for his 3-4-3 situation as it is, and keeping Guehi will make them a better team in the short term while there is now no escape from their need to do some forward planning.
Parish is both the winner and loser here. It shouldn’t have got to this point to keep Glasner, now forever a club legend for delivering the FA Cup and leading Palace into Europe for the first time, in his post. The Austrian is a top-level manager who will surely be inundated with offers over the next couple of years, and in lieu of Guehi, he is now the most valuable person at Selhurst Park. But you can’t help but feel the chairman must feel some level of regret at not selling to Newcastle in 2024 for £65m, or to توتنهام at the peak of their injury crisis last January for £70m.
Guehi is not the first player to have seen their transfer dream go up in smoke. Faulty fax machines and failed medicals are usually the most popular method of destruction, but such disappointment is much the same anyway.
There are various examples we could run through. Let’s start with David de Gea, who looked set to complete a switch to ريال مدريد on the final day of the 2015 summer window – now a full decade ago, which is a scary thought – but a paperwork issue meant the deal wasn’t ratified in time and he was sent back to مانشستر يونايتد.
The Spanish goalkeeper never ended up being a Galactico and he probably would have won the game’s top prizes, but he became a legend at Old Trafford and arguably one of their most important players in modern history, winning their in-house Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year awards four times apiece, while he also finished his Premier League career with five appearances in the Team of the Season, more than any other goalkeeper in history.
Maybe a more relevant comparison for Guehi to look to is Ruud van Nistelrooy’s move to United. The Dutchman was first set to sign in 2000 from PSV, only for medical results to show concerns over his knee. United pulled the plug, and days later, Van Nistelrooy tore his ACL, ruling him out for most of the season. Sir Alex Ferguson, a huge admirer of the striker’s talent, promised he would return for him the following summer, and he kept true to his word. Van Nistelrooy signed for the Red Devils in 2001 and would go on to score 150 goals for the club.
When one door closes, another is said to open. Guehi can’t, and most likely won’t, sit around stewing in bitterness forever.
A move to a more prestigious club is still only around the corner. Even if he were to sustain a serious injury, a la Van Nistelrooy’s ACL, he would still receive plenty of serious offers from teams competing for major titles. In all likelihood, Liverpool will return again, just as they did with Virgil van Dijk at Southampton eight years ago (another transfer saga that was a scarily long time ago).
This is a storyline which all involved may benefit from in the long run. For Palace, they still have at least four more months with their skipper, with the recruitment team now tasked with finding a replacement for good this time. For Liverpool, they will save a bit of cash all the while slugging out the first half of the season with a decent assortment of defenders. If they think they’re still short in January, then they know who exactly to call.
Most importantly, for the player himself, Guehi will have more choice over his next move, a chance to bid a proper farewell to the club he is entwined with forever, and the opportunity to take home a more lucrative signing bonus. It’s not a bad life.
