Pedro Neto and Liverpool: A Complex Transfer Story

Two years ago, Liverpool thought they were in the race. Anfield officials spoke to the representatives of Pedro Neto, then lighting it up at Wolves. The profile fit, the timing made sense, and plenty inside the club saw a winger with the tools to grow into something special.

He went to Chelsea instead. Jamie Carragher has never quite hidden his regret over that.

Now, at 26, Neto finds his name circling back towards Merseyside. Not because Liverpool have made a move, but because one well-connected journalist believes the player would sprint towards the opportunity if it appeared.

“Would jump at this,” is how Dave Davis put it on Anfield Index’s The Transfer Show.

Liverpool’s winger hunt – and Mendes in the middle

Liverpool’s summer brief is clear: wide players. Plural. With Mo Salah’s long-term future still a live question and the squad short of natural touchline wingers, recruitment has been geared towards adding pace, creativity and goals from the flanks.

Davis outlined where Neto fits into that picture, stressing that Liverpool have re-opened channels with super-agent Jorge Mendes, whose client list includes the Chelsea forward.

“Who are Liverpool going to move for? It’s clear the wingers are the priority, and I’m saying that plural,” he said. “Liverpool seem to be back in bed with Jorge Mendes, whose client is Pedro Neto.”

From a stylistic point of view, Neto ticks plenty of boxes. Davis highlighted the numbers that have long attracted analysts: Neto carries the ball with purpose, whips in dangerous crosses and consistently generates threat in the final third.

The data backs it up. In the 2025/26 Premier League season, per 90 minutes, he sits in the 95th percentile for cross expected threat and the 93rd for cross value added. His broader creative output stands up as well:

• Pass completion: 87.3% (89th percentile)
• Successful crosses: 1.29 (88th)
• ‘Big chances’ created: 0.41 (81st)
• Assists: 0.2 (78th)
• Chances created: 1.8 (78th)
• Successful dribbles: 1.6 (76th)

These are the metrics of a winger who constantly asks questions of defences, even if he doesn’t always provide the final punch himself.

Davis’ line was clear: Liverpool looked at Neto seriously at Wolves and, from what he’s hearing, the player would be all in if they came calling now. “They nearly did him when he was at Wolves,” he noted, before admitting he was “poking holes” in the idea even as he aired it.

And that’s where the fantasy meets the reality.

Quality on the ball, questions in front of goal

Neto’s Chelsea spell has been a mixed picture. He’s produced flashes of the sublime, stretches of form where he looks like one of the most dangerous wide men in the league, and he played a starring role in the club’s Club World Cup triumph a year ago, scoring three times at the tournament.

Across his time at Stamford Bridge, he has 19 goals in 103 appearances. Respectable. Not spectacular.

Strip it down to the Premier League and the story hardens. Nine goals in 69 league games for Chelsea. For a player being discussed as a potential heir to Salah’s right-wing berth at Anfield, that return raises eyebrows.

To put it into context, Cody Gakpo – heavily criticised for long spells of last season – matched that nine-goal tally in just 52 games in all competitions for Liverpool in the 2024/25 campaign. Gakpo’s finishing and impact were questioned relentlessly. Neto’s numbers invite the same scrutiny.

What keeps him in conversations like this is everything between the halfway line and the penalty area. His chance creation, his crossing, his dribbling, the way he manipulates space and pulls defences around – those are elite traits. They’re why analysts keep coming back to him and why a club like Liverpool, built on structured chaos in the final third, would at least keep tabs.

He’s also tactically flexible. Neto can operate off the right, cut in from the left, or slot centrally if required. For a manager wanting fluid interchanges across the front line, that’s gold.

The Chelsea factor and a hard dose of reality

There’s another layer: moving between Chelsea and direct rivals is no longer taboo. Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke to Arsenal, Mason Mount to Manchester United – the pathway is open, the precedent set. If Liverpool did push for Neto, the deal would not be unthinkable purely on rivalry grounds.

The real obstacles lie elsewhere.

Chelsea would be reluctant to strengthen a rival without a hefty fee. Liverpool, under their current recruitment model, rarely pay premium prices for wide forwards who don’t bring guaranteed goals. And for all Neto’s strengths, his output in front of goal simply doesn’t place him in the bracket of a Salah successor right now.

That’s before you factor in the scale of Liverpool’s wider rebuild in the attacking areas. With more than one winger on the shopping list, the club’s decision-makers will be ruthless about value, age profile, availability and end product. Romantic “what ifs” from the Wolves days won’t sway them.

So yes, Neto might “jump at” the chance. Yes, the numbers behind his creativity are strong. Yes, Liverpool and Mendes talking again keeps his name in the conversation.

But when the shortlist is trimmed and the cheques are written, does a 26-year-old with nine league goals for Chelsea truly look like the man to walk into Salah’s shadow at Anfield?

Right now, it feels like a story that flatters to deceive – tantalising on paper, unlikely on the pitch.