Liverpool signed Ronald Araujo in August, with Virgil van Dijk as their only fully fit senior centre-back. Three months on, the Barcelona loanee has done the job well, and Liverpool will wait until the end of the season before deciding whether to pay the £47m that makes his stay permanent.
The loan has settled one question and left a more expensive one open. Araujo is useful, but Liverpool traditionally favour younger signings who hold their value, and the resale numbers are where the case for signing him starts to fall apart.
What Liverpool actually have is a right-back more than a centre-back. Andoni Iraola has used him almost exclusively there, which is not the centre-back succession role Liverpool will need to fill. The 27-year-old does plenty right. He won 65 per cent of his duels across his first eight Premier League games, wins seven in every 10 aerial contests and gives the side extra height defending set pieces.
Van Dijk praised him as “very aggressive at the right moments” after the win over Brighton. Araujo isn’t a strong passer, and Iraola admitted Liverpool “lose a little bit offensively” when a centre-back plays full-back.
Whether he keeps that job, with Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong both on the books as specialists, is a fair question. The pressure sits in the middle of the defence. Ibrahima Konaté left for Real Madrid, Van Dijk is 35 with a contract that expires in June and no extension reported, and Joe Gomez remains injury-prone.
The resale value is the real problem. Araujo turns 28 in March, so Liverpool would buy him on the way down, not up. The fee spreads over a five-year contract at roughly £9.4m a year in the accounts, before wages that reports put at around £180,000 a week after tax. A club buying him in 2029 would have to take on that salary too, and the list of suitors shrinks quickly.
His record makes it worse. A hamstring injury in 2024/25 kept him out for 147 days and 29 matches, and his game relies on recovery pace and aggression, qualities that tend to fade first and that hamstrings punish.
Barcelona’s behaviour counts as evidence. They named him club captain in January, yet agreed to send him to Anfield for a season with no loan fee and Liverpool covering his wages. Valuation sites list him at under half the option price. The £47m is what Barcelona want, not what any club have shown they would pay.
Compare that with Jeremy Jacquet, bought at 20 for a reported £60m. If he develops, his value climbs. Araujo’s is more likely to shrink with every season.
Should Liverpool trigger the option, then? No, not at that price. Liverpool should treat this season as the cheap version of Araujo, a wages-only rental that plugged a gap, and let the option lapse unless Barcelona cut the fee. According to the Mail’s Lewis Steele, he “can already picture himself staying”, so a renegotiation with a lower fee and shorter contract is worth attempting.
The counterargument is also valid. A proven Premier League defender carries less risk than a gamble on an unknown, and if Van Dijk leaves in June while Jacquet stalls, £47m will look cheap. But that insurance shouldn’t cost a prime-age fee for a player whose market has never been tested at that level. The money belongs on a younger centre-back whose value holds.
Araujo has earned a fair offer, but £47m, five years and Premier League wages would turn a good loan into an asset Liverpool couldn’t sell once he turns 30.
So what should Liverpool do? Open talks with Barcelona now, not in June, and push for a lower fee, or a payment structure that spreads the cost, on a three-year contract, not five. Once the price and length protect the club, resale stops mattering.
Liverpool aren’t a selling club. They compete with Arsenal and Manchester City, and elite sides judge a defender by what he helps them win, not what he might fetch. If Araujo keeps winning duels and leading the back line, Liverpool should keep him for as long as he performs, then replace him on their own terms.
