As football's arms-race continues this summer Jurgen Klopp is refusing to panic, writes Darren Lewis in Singapore for The Mirror Sport.
The Manchester clubs, Chelsea and Arsenal have splashed out shattered transfer records on the likes of Alvaro Morata, Alexandre Lacazette, Romelu Lukaku, Victor Lindelof, Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy.
And across Stanley Park, Klopp's neighbours Everton have flexed their new-found financial muscles to spend smartly.
Liverpool have pushed the boat out too, of course, with a club-record £37million spent on Roma winger Mohamed Salah.
But while their rivals at the top end of the Premier League close in on and in several cases land more of their targets, the Reds are being frustrated in pursuit of both Naby Keita and Virgil van Dijk.
Germany's RB Leipzig, backed by billionaire Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz, are refusing to sell star midfielder Keita, while Liverpool have had their fingers burnt over their pursuit of Van Dijk, Southampton’s prize asset.
It has led to claims the Anfield giants are lagging behind in the race to stockpile the required weaponry for the coming season.
Boss Klopp is confident, however, that the club’s fans will feel pride in his determination to stay focused on quality over quantity.
“I hope they do,” he said. “I hope they do, because there are a lot of reasons for it.
“After a season there is a summer break and everybody starts feeling that the transfer window is more interesting than the league.
People [look at the players their club have bought and] think, ‘Oh, we are winning already!’
“Unfortunately after the transfer window you have to carry on playing.
That’s what I am most interested in.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t want to bring players in.
We’ve always brought players in. Wonderful players like Wijnaldum, Ragnar Klavan, Joel Matip. Sadio [Mane, Liverpool's record buy until the Salah deal].
“A lot of good players already. But, it was not like - I don’t know - Ibrahimovic, Lukaku and others.
Does that mean we can’t do it? I have no idea. We will see.
“We want to do the right thing and not calm the people down with a big signing and everyone will think, 'Now you have to [win the league]', then it’s, ‘Oh, obviously you can’t’.
“So that’s why I’m completely fine. We want to do a lot, but not a lot in numbers, only a lot of work to improve this squad with training and different players.”
Everton’s impressive transfer business has led to suggestions they could even finish above their Merseyside rivals.
Ronald Koeman has splashed out over £100m, including £30m on keeper Jordan Pickford, £25m on Ajax attacking midfielder Davy Klaassen, £30m on England defender Michael Keane and the free transfer of Wayne Rooney.
Klopp remains respectful, but unfazed: “First of all, I’m not interested in what other clubs are doing until we play them.
So they can make the best business or the worst business, I’m not in it. I’m completely fine.
“Yes, I heard, of course a few things that they have done. Strikers, good. Wayne Rooney, you don’t have to talk about.
The centre-half came. Good. So a lot of really good business.
Klaassen, good. It's all good.
“But, at the end of the day, just like us, they can only line up eleven players.
Then we have to see what will happen. But all the teams have tried to get stronger.
“With Everton, usually derbies are really close games.
“Don’t think we have gone into any of the last few derbies thinking, ‘It's only Everton.’ No.
There is a lot of respect and if they’ve done good business, well done. But when we face them we still want to win.”
No comments:
Post a Comment