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Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish revealed that Liverpool's lowball and late offer for Ismaïla Sarr meant a transfer was never going to materialize this summer, setting off a chain reaction that affected four Premier League clubs.
Liverpool were hunting for several wide players this summer. Bradley Barcola was ultimately signed from Paris Saint-Germain at considerable cost to complement Víctor Muñoz's earlier acquisition, but there had been widespread speculation surrounding a potential departure for Cody Gakpo, valued at over $100 million, who would require a like-for-like replacement. That's where Sarr came into the equation.
"A club [Liverpool] came in and, with the amount of money they bid, they couldn't seriously think in that market it was going to get done at that level, and then they didn't come back in for him," Parish said candidly in an interview with The Athletic.
"If you're selling players for £90 million [$119.3 million] and then you want to bid us half of that for the replacement, it's fine, you can do it. I'm not criticizing anybody for doing it. But it's not going to happen.
"You could understand Ismaïla would have liked to go and if it wasn't five days before the end of the window and the money was right, then we would have tried to facilitate it."
Even with only a handful of days remaining in the transfer window, Palace's position still managed to send significant shockwaves throughout the Premier League.
The Fallout at Palace, Liverpool, Man City and Tottenham From Sarr's Failed Move
Sarr Sulks at Selhurst Park
Sarr had been linked with Turkish title holders Galatasaray before quickly setting his sights on a switch to Liverpool. The episode unfolded against a backdrop of the winger's agent, Diomansy Kamara, accusing Palace of treating his client like a "commodity."
"For Ismaïla, [his situation] is difficult for him to come to terms with," Parish acknowledged. "He didn't like it. Maybe it's been painted to him in a certain way, which isn't really the whole story."
Palace's chairman was quick to redirect the blame toward Sarr's representative.
"I don't care what [Kamara] thinks in the context of accusations against us," Parish continued. "If any football club gets a bid for their top scorer five days before the end of a transfer window, that's going to be a difficult deal to get done. I would say to those representatives that the good ones would be managing those expectations with the player and not making it everybody else's fault.
"It's their job to get that bid earlier. They get paid by the player and the club and are there to help everybody oil the wheels. It doesn't help anybody when you go in the media and make unfounded accusations."
A conveniently timed groin complaint kept Sarr sidelined for Palace's opening five matches of the new season, but the 28-year-old, whom Parish praised as a "professional," has since returned from the bench for Pierre Sage's squad in recent weeks.
Gakpo Taken Off the Table
Gakpo appeared to have one foot out the Anfield exit during the closing days of August. The Dutch international had attracted interest from both Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, reportedly reaching personal terms with the latter in what threatened to become a $112.6 million (£85 million) transaction.
However, once it became apparent that Liverpool could not secure Sarr or Brighton & Hove Albion's Yankuba Minteh as his replacement, Gakpo was removed from the market entirely.
Unlike Sarr, Gakpo professionally played through the uncertainty and even rediscovered his finest form in years. Over the opening three weeks of the new campaign, Gakpo was directly involved in three goals — matching his total from the final 16 outings of the previous season.
Man City Trump Tottenham
Tottenham were forced to shift their focus away from Gakpo ahead of City and quickly turned their attention to another underperforming Premier League winger, Iliman Ndiaye. Spurs had reportedly struck an agreement with Everton to acquire Sarr's international teammate for $79.5 million (£60 million) while sending Richarlison back to Merseyside for $46.4 million (£35 million).
It appeared to be an arrangement that suited all parties — until City muscled their way into the picture.
Despite boasting a vast scouting database of 650,000 players, which the club are fond of publicizing, City's approach this summer seemed to amount to little more than shadowing Tottenham's every move. When Gakpo fell through, Ndiaye suddenly became their primary target, as City swooped in to agree a fee that could reach $86.2 million (£65 million). As Ndiaye later disclosed, the prospect of Champions League football — something Spurs were unable to offer — proved impossible to resist.
In a sequence of events that began with Liverpool's failure to land Sarr, Tottenham somehow ended up as the biggest losers of all.