Liverpool's Anfield Farewell Day: 12 Players Depart

June 30 always feels administrative on the football calendar. At Anfield this year, it lands like a full stop.

Contracts roll over or run out, squads reset, and this time Liverpool are saying goodbye to 12 players in one sweep, from senior stalwarts to Academy hopefuls. It is the first hard cut of the Andoni Iraola era, and it comes with a sense of both loss and intent.

A new Liverpool takes shape

Change has been brewing since Iraola walked through the door. The club moved quickly in the market: Spain winger Victor Munoz arrived after Liverpool triggered his £34.5 million release clause at Osasuna, while a £60m deal for Rennes centre-back Jeremy Jacquet was tied up back in January and now edges towards completion.

Those signings signal a shift in profile and style. Today’s departures underline the scale of the rebuild.

Robertson and Konate headline exits

The headline farewells belong to two pillars of recent Liverpool sides.

Andy Robertson, the relentless left-back who came to embody the club’s intensity and edge, will officially become a Tottenham Hotspur player on Wednesday when his contract at Anfield expires. Across the same divide, Ibrahima Konate, long seen as a cornerstone of Liverpool’s defence, will join Real Madrid after his own deal runs down.

Two very different moves. One stays in the Premier League, another heads to the European superclub that so often stalks Liverpool’s ambitions. Both leave sizeable gaps, on the pitch and in the dressing room.

Salah waits on his future

Mohamed Salah is also stepping away, but his next step remains on hold. The forward will only decide his future once Egypt’s World Cup campaign is over.

Al-Hilal, one of the Saudi Pro League’s powerhouses, are strongly interested in the 34-year-old. For now, though, his story is in pause mode rather than full stop, his Anfield chapter closing without the immediate reveal of the sequel.

Rhys Williams moves on

Among the departures, there is a quieter goodbye for a player who once found himself thrust into the spotlight.

Rhys Williams, the centre-back who made 19 first-team appearances during the chaotic, injury-ravaged 2020/21 season, is leaving the club and has already been on trial with MLS side New York Red Bulls. His journey from emergency solution to distant squad figure now points firmly away from Merseyside.

Academy clear-out signals next wave

Beneath the first team, Liverpool are also reshaping their Academy ranks. For all the emotion tied to senior exits, these are the decisions that refresh the production line.

• Defenders Josh Davidson, Terence Miles and Emmanuel Airoboma are all departing on free transfers.
• Goalkeepers DJ Bernard and Jacob Poytress will follow them out.
• Midfielder James Balagizi – who twice made the senior bench in the 2021/22 season – also leaves in search of a new home for his talent.
• Up front, striker Kareem Ahmed moves on, as does Oakley Cannonier, a name etched into modern Liverpool folklore for a moment that technically never shows up on a stats sheet.

Cannonier’s corner and a lasting legacy

Cannonier was still an Academy youngster in 2019 when he took that now-famous quick throw of the ball to Trent Alexander-Arnold, sparking the rapidly taken corner that Divock Origi buried to send Liverpool to the Champions League final at Barcelona’s expense.

He never became a first-team regular. Yet his instinct in that split second helped define one of Anfield’s greatest nights. Not every contribution is measured in appearances.

A line in the sand

By the time the clock ticks past midnight, those 12 names will no longer sit on Liverpool’s books. Contracts end, squads turn over, and Iraola’s Liverpool moves from theory to reality.

The question now is not who has gone, but how quickly this new version can find its voice in a stadium that never stands still for long.