Richard Hughes has left Liverpool but his transfer mistakes remain

Richard Hughes was in charge of Liverpool's transfer business during their most expensive window ever.

Last season, the Englishman spent over £450 million to try and improve the Reds' ranks.

Most people thought this amount of spending would set them up for the next few years but, in reality, that was far from the case.

Alexander Isak and Jeremie Frimpong were constantly injured with Florian Wirtz often failing to live up to expectations.

The same issues followed Liverpool into the 2026-27 season where he spent another £150 million trying to resolve those same issues.

However, now that he's gone, fans are hoping for change but, unfortunately for them, Hughes' mistakes have remained.

Liverpool are still having to suffer with having a trio of veterans among their ranks thanks to Richard Hughes

Although Hughes may have felt like he did a good job as Liverpool's sporting director, it feels like he's actually managed to make the team worse in some ways.

He handed two new long-term deals to Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai who have both been poor and, he attempted to replace Mohamed Salah with a £123 million deal for Bradley Barcola.

On the face of things, these may have felt like the right things to do at the time, but, now that we're a few months into the 2026-27 season, it's clear that they weren't.

His failure to offload some of Liverpool's benchwarmers is also beginning to hurt the Reds.

Wataru Endo, Kostas Tsimikas and Federico Chiesa are all still at the club despite not having a regular role with the Premier League outfit for some time.

And, while Julian Ward could end up generating a little bit of cash thanks to their sales, both Endo and Tsimikas' contracts expire at the end of the current season which means they're likely to leave for nothing.

But, until then, they're just taking up valuable squad spaces which has left the Reds a bit stuck.

Julian Ward needs to get Liverpool's first-team squad back to its best

Although Liverpool's performances are down to Andoni Iraola, the vast majority of their recruitment falls onto Ward's shoulders.

He was appointed as the Reds' new sporting director after Hughes chose to leave his role and, since then, several players have been linked with a switch.

The Reds may be one of the most well known football teams in the world but, that doesn't mean that they have an endless amount of money to spend.

However, with how much damage Hughes has done to their squad, it's clear that so many areas of it will need to be upgraded.

Without Liverpool doing this, they could get left even further behind their title rivals which is why it's so important for Ward to get the squad back up to scratch.

Here's hoping that Ward and Iraola can solve Liverpool's issues and get them back to where they need to be.