If you go by the fee alone, Dominik Szoboszlai was the marquee addition of the summer transfer window for Liverpool.
The Reds paid RB Leipzig $77m (PS60m/EUR70m) when they activated the release clause in Szoboszlai's contract, a full $32m more than it had spent on Brighton's Alexis Mac Allister, the second-most expensive signing.
After Szoboszlai's magnificent start to life at Anfield, the only question is why more top clubs weren't queuing up to recruit him for that price. The Hungarian was deservedly named Liverpool's player of the month for August and you wouldn't bet against him following that up with the September honors too.
He was the third player Jurgen Klopp has signed from RB Leipzig in the space of six seasons, taking the same path as Naby Keita and Ibrahima Konate, and it may only be a couple of years before Liverpool is picking up the phone to the Bundesliga club once again.
According to Bild journalist Christian Falk, Liverpool 'will be keeping an eye on' striker Lois Openda, who will be available for a fee of just over $85m (PS69m/EUR80m) when his release clause kicks in from 2025.
Openda came through the youth ranks at Club Brugge in his native Belgium but left the club to join French side Lens on a permanent deal in 2022 on the back of a 16-goal season on loan at Eredivisie outfit Vitesse.
In his solitary Ligue 1 campaign, he would net 21 league goals, finishing fourth in the scoring charts and making the competition's team of the season after Lens finished in an outstanding second place, just a point behind PSG.
That was enough to earn him a $41m (PS34m/EUR39m) transfer to Leipzig, where he's made a strong start by bagging five goals in his first 11 matches, one of which came against surely the best team on the planet in Manchester City in the Champions League group stages.
Early in the second half, Openda received the ball with his back to goal just inside the Leipzig half, and touched it off to Yussuf Poulsen before spinning and racing away from Ruben Dias. Poulsen was then able to play the ball into the space ahead of Openda, who absorbed contact from Manuel Akanji before slotting it beyond Ederson and into the corner.
That goal drew Leipzig level on the night, and while it eventually lost 3-1, the 23-year-old had certainly made his mark in one of the biggest games of his career to his date.
Openda is below average for players in his position when it comes to the volume of his link-up play, but he does still rank in the 86th percentile for assists (0.21 per 90 minutes), so he can play the killer pass in the right areas.
Another thing he has in common with Haaland is his pace, described as 'terrifying' by The Athletic's Seb Stafford-Bloor. That's part of the reason he's been fouled 14 times already in the Bundesliga this season, the seventh-highest figure in the division. Often, you're either faced with the choice of bringing him down or letting him reach the penalty area (he placed 10th in Ligue 1 for carries into the box last year with 39).
As relayed above, Openda's release clause becomes active in 2025, by which point Liverpool will have been able to reach a final verdict on incumbent number nine Darwin Nunez.
Nunez has demonstrated explosive potential at Anfield thus far, but the question is whether it will come to fruition. If it does so, then a move for Openda may be off the table given that the two players are similar in age and profile, but if not, then Liverpool may already have found the ideal alternative.
The way he's going, that price tag, however lofty, will look very reasonable in a couple of years' time.