Kop have been smart in the market while United have been left smarting

WITH the record signing of Darwin Nunez looking close for Liverpool, what fascinates me is the presence of Manchester United amid the negotiations.

I can guarantee the Anfield people would have been uneasy with that, as it has the potential to push up not only the price, but the wages, too.

No agent worth his salt wouldn’t use it to get a bigger contract.

But United being in the background – for me – highlights just why this could so easily be another masterstroke for Liverpool in the transfer market, and it’s a point that is so often overlooked in the desperation to see new faces, new signings, new excitement.

I don’t want to be cruel, but United could have written a book on how not to do transfers in recent seasons. Signing players just because you don’t want them to go to a rival? Check and double check.

Cristiano Ronaldo has done his job well enough, but signing him because he could have gone to Manchester City?

That just had disaster written all over it. And the same with Alexis Sanchez. No, not the same – 10 times worse.

That deal highlights everything that has been wrong at Old Trafford. How much did it cost? About £500,000 a week in wages, which I saw somewhere cost them about £20million a goal.

Much, much worse, though, was that it didn’t just break United’s pay structure, it shattered it.

That’s how a goalkeeper can end up on £400,000 a week and a midfielder like Paul Pogba (right, with Sanchez), who couldn’t even get in the team half the time, on even more.

And that’s where I think Liverpool have got it right. I can understand there are many, many people questioning why they’re letting Sadio Mane go, asking, “Why not give him the wages he wants?”.

It’s the same with Mo Salah, too. But what impresses me about the thinking at Anfield is nothing is done in haste.

Everything is analysed, decisions made with planning over years, not months.

There was clearly a calculation they could get Mane and Salah to play this season without agreeing new contracts and not downing tools.

It worked – it has been one of their best-ever seasons.

But there have been calculations. If they give Mane the money, they have to give it to Salah, and then Virgil van Dijk and Alisson and everyone else, too.

You can see the thinking with Nunez.

Mane is 30, he’s 22. Selling Mane could raise around £40m, and Nunez cost £80m.

But – and this is a significant – he’ll most likely be on less than half the wages Mane was asking for.

Which, over the course of a five-year contract, could save them all of that extra £40m. On top of that, it doesn’t break the wage structure.

Looking at it that way, replacing a 30-year-old with a 22-year-old, while keeping your financial house in order is a bloody good win for Liverpool… and it’s something United must follow.

You look at their pursuit of Nunez, and the only chance they have of getting him is by smashing Liverpool’s offer – tempting him with huge amounts of cash.

But, again, that is following the Sanchez plan – and it doesn’t work.

What they should do is follow Jurgen Klopp’s plan when he arrived at Anfield. He knew he couldn’t compete with City, United and Chelsea, so he found players they didn’t want – and turned them into stars.

Erik ten Hag has the qualities to do that. It takes time, but it’s the right way to go… and he should be given all the time he needs, even if it takes five years like Klopp, or Sir Alex

Ferguson.

Darwin Nunez costs £80m, but he will be on less than half the wages that Sadio

Mane was asking