The 'what if' transfers. Every club has them, and Liverpool are no exception.

A certain Kylian Mbappe confirmed this week that he had held talks with Jurgen Klopp back in 2017, his mother desperately keen for her son to head to Merseyside.

Alas, those in-flight negotiations couldn't sway the teenager from joining Paris Saint-Germain instead, with a Mr Mohamed Salah ultimately rocking up on Merseyside that summer.

A real case of what might have been, even if Salah did prove a roaring success, with the same feeling there too regarding Mbappe's current Real Madrid teammate, Jude Bellingham.

3 Liverpool's long-standing interest in Jude Bellingham

Looking back to the summer of 2023, it was a seismic one in terms of Liverpool's midfield unit, the likes of Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and James Milner all departing.

In came Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Wataru Endo, the Reds embarking on the kind of rapid overhaul that hadn't been seen in Klopp's tenure prior to that.

It is intriguing to wonder what that window might have looked like if the club had gone all in on Bellingham instead, the Englishman's superstar status already secure amid his rise at both Birmingham City and Borussia Dortmund.

As The Athletic wrote back in 2022, the midfield sensation had actually been on Liverpool's radar for a decade at that point, having embarked on a two-day stint at the Kirkby Academy in 2012.

The Reds were hoping to entice a teen Bellingham and his family to uproot and move to Merseyside, with any deal set to have cost roughly £9k in compensation.

Unfortunately, the Bellingham camp, to their credit, decided to stay put in Birmingham, with young Jude ultimately making his Blues debut in August 2019, at the age of just 16.

A missed chance then on that occasion, and it wouldn't be the only one.

2 How Liverpool missed out on Bellingham

Having moved to Germany in the summer of 2020 as a mere 17-year-old, despite rampant interest from Manchester United, Bellingham remained firmly on the radar of Liverpool. Well, he was on the radar of every elite European club, for that matter.

Part of England's Euro 2020 squad the following year, the then-Dortmund starlet properly announced himself at the Qatar World Cup in 2022, netting England's first goal of the tournament.

It was around that time that rumours were rife regarding the Reds' interest, while it was also in the period in which Julian Ward, the man set to return to Anfield soon enough, was acting as sporting director.

Ward oversaw matters across that 2022/23 season, with The Athletic's James Pearce revealing this week that it was effectively the Englishman who 'pulled the plug' on the Bellingham pursuit.

The feeling was that the player had his heart set on Madrid instead, while there was also a sense that the club needed to spread their investment, rather than going all out on just one player.

The merits of that decision can be debated long into the night, but the fact is that Liverpool missed out on England's golden boy and one of the best players in the world. Thankfully, they've since snapped up another stellar talent.

1 Why Liverpool have already signed another Bellingham in the making

Ward, 45, is set to return to Merseyside to fill Richard Hughes' vacancy, taking on that sporting director role once more.

There's plenty of work to be done in terms of contracts and squad-building, but he will also inherit a team that is full to the brim with world-class talent.

For all the recent turmoil, there's such an exciting young core now at Anfield, with Rio Ngumoha right at the heart of it, the teenager set to be a real superstar for both club and country.

Still only 18, Ngumoha has been called up to Thomas Tuchel's squad for England's upcoming Nations League fixtures, having previously been part of the pre-World Cup preparations back in June.

There were even claims at the time that he should have been in the final 26-man squad itself, following his lively outing in the warm-up game against New Zealand.

To even be included as part of Tuchel's plans was a statement in itself, with the fleet-footed winger becoming the fifth-youngest debutant in Three Lions history.

He's certainly among esteemed company on that list, with the aforementioned Bellingham only just ahead in third, having debuted himself at the age of just 17 back in 2020.

It's been a remarkable rise for the Madrid man since then, with this summer's World Cup seeing him truly cement talismanic status at international level, even surpassing Harry Kane in that sense.

Ngumoha has a long way to go to reach that kind of level for both club and country, but it's been a rapid ascent already, having thus far made 35 senior appearances for the Reds, scoring twice.

Plucked from Chelsea back in 2024 for an initial fee of around £3m, the youngster's real breakout moment came at St James' Park in August 2025, netting that stoppage-time winner for Arne Slot's side.

He's a different profile of player to Bellingham, undoubtedly, but there's that similar fearlessness to his game that is certainly akin to his compatriot.

It was fitting too that it was indeed Bellingham who handed Ngumoha his debut cap after that New Zealand clash, the 23-year-old passing down the baton to, hopefully, England's next superstar.

Back at Liverpool, meanwhile, while the failure or inability to sign 'Jude' all those years ago still sticks in the craw, snapping up Ngumoha from Stamford Bridge is a more than stellar consolation prize.