'No Scousers in our team' - Liverpool at real risk of losing their local identity and alienating the people they represent

When Jones completed his long-mooted move to Inter on August 21, the common consensus was that Liverpool had been left with little choice but to do a deal. The England international had entered the final year of his contract and had no intention of signing a new one. The boyhood Liverpool fan was no longer happy at Anfield.

Arne Slot may have been sacked at the end of last season - which ended with Jones being employed as a makeshift right-back - but the 25-year-old wanted more minutes in his preferred position in midfield, and there was no guarantee that he was going to get them under Andoni Iraola, making a move inevitable.

Indeed, most of the fallout focused on the relatively small fee (Jones went for just £25 million in the same summer that relegated West Ham sold Mateus Fernandes to Spurs for more than three times that figure) and the fear that Liverpool would not sign a replacement, which was both well-founded and understandable. Right from the start of his tenure, Iraola had been very vocal about the fact that he wanted more options in midfield - not fewer.

However, the Spaniard had also publicly expressed his desire to hold on to Jones - and not just because he rated him "very highly" as a player. "It's very important that he's Scouse, that he's from here," the Liverpool coach said when asked about Jones' future in July.

Iraola's opinion was utterly unsurprising. As a proud Basque who had spent the majority of his own career lining out for Athletic Club, he understands better than most the importance of players having a strong bond with the team, and indeed the people, they represent.

"I see a lot of similarities [between Liverpool and Bilbao]," Iraola told reporters during the pre-season tour of the United States. "This sense of belonging, of being a little bit different, and this connection, also, with players from the academy."

What, then, are we to make of the fact that Jones' exit means Liverpool don't have a single Scouser in their senior squad for the first time in the modern era? After all, there were fears that the club was losing its identity even before Jones' departure.

Fenway Sports Group (FSG) have unquestionably done a fine job running the Reds, with the American owners taking a club that was on the verge of bankruptcy back in 2010 and turning it into one of the most profitable teams in world football.

However, supporters groups such as the Spirit of Shankly (SOS) have taken issue with the rising cost of tickets, as there's long been a belief that local fans are being priced out of attending games. "Matchday income represents a relatively small proportion of total revenue yet comes at the expense of affordability, loyalty and trust," SOS wrote in an open letter to FSG earlier this year.

Last month's news that 1892 Holdings, a consortium backed by the incredibly divisive Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had acquired a 38 percent stake in the club - and is now in a position to complete a full takeover inside the next 12 months - only increased concerns that Liverpool are moving further and further away from their roots.

As Kieran Maguire of 'The Price of Football Podcast' told GOAL at the time, "Liverpool is a very proud working-class city and the broader, pre-existing fear of the marginalisation of the traditional fanbase has only been exacerbated by this development.

"A lot of supporters are already concerned that more tickets will be going to more rich people, and for extortionate prices, and that would continue to dilute what makes a trip to Anfield unique. For the people of Liverpool, the club is far more than a tourist attraction and you don't want the continued 'Disney-fication' of something that is part of the history, heritage and identity of the city."

There is an obvious risk, then, that the connection between Liverpool and its followers will only be further weakened by the absence of local lads on the pitch. Club legend Steven Gerrard even admitted earlier this summer that he was dead against selling Jones for the simple fact that he was a Scouser born and bred.

"I just think that, naturally, being around Liverpool, growing up in the city, we understand the demands of the club, the style, what the fans want," the former Reds captain and youth-team coach told BFM Radio. “It’s embedded in us because we know the city inside out. For that reason, I think the academy at our club is crucial, as I think it's key that we keep producing homegrown talent.

"Liverpool have always been very good at that. If you look back, Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman, Trent Alexander-Arnold, myself, even the likes of players like Jay Spearing and Stephen Warnock who don’t play the [same] amount of games, they come into the team and they understand the values and the principles of what we’re about."

The aforementioned Carragher, though, is no longer entirely sure that Liverpool are about, at least in terms of their player recruitment.

"What we did last summer, I didn't really like it," the ex-Liverpool defender told Football Ramble. "It felt like a Real Madrid summer – Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak, we're gonna get Hugo Ekitike, another striker, for £80m even though we've got one for £125m.

"This summer, it's all about Bradley Barcola. What about the days we had before when we built that team under Klopp and we were getting players who people weren't quite sure about and getting great value? I almost want to go back to that." Carragher's certainly not alone in that regard, but it seems that Liverpool, just like the game itself, are moving in the opposition direction.

Of course, the academy is not without representation in the current squad. Rio Ngumoha may have been signed from Chelsea but he's technically a former youth team player, while Trey Nyoni was an unused substitute in the Carabao Cup win over Chelsea that filled Klopp with such a sense of pride and is set to feature prominently this season. The soon-to-be fit-again Danns could also come back into the first-team picture, given Isak is Liverpool's only orthodox No.9 with Ekitike likely to be sidelined until 2027.

As Carragher has noted, though, there has been a noticeable shift in recruitment strategy at Anfield, with the four most expensive signings in the club's history all made in the past two summer transfer windows, and that's made it even more difficult for homegrown talent to break through.

Indeed, having signed Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain just before the close of the summer transfer window, the Reds are now in a position to field three £100m-plus players in Friday's Premier League meeting with Ipswich Town at Portman Road - yet Iraola won't have a single local lad to choose from.

In that sense, Klopp was correct: Liverpool's Carabao Cup triumph was unique, and unlikely to ever be repeated. And not just because it's so difficult to win trophies with kids. It's also down to the fact that some people in and around Anfield seem to have forgotten that having a Scouse soul means more than absolutely everything else.