Klopp Plays Down Prospects of Big Summer Signings

Speaking to the press ahead of Liverpool FC’s rescheduled fixture against Manchester United, Jürgen Klopp conceded that the chances of Liverpool conducting major business this summer were slim:

Not a lot. It depends on what happens if someone wants to leave, if we sell. We can never really plan early.

Not playing Champions League doesn’t help obviously, but it’s not our biggest problem. The market will be really strange. I hear about really big money moves… is Kylian Mbappe going? Haaland? Sancho? I don’t see that happening a lot this summer because the football world is still not in the same place it was before. The situation is better than I would have thought a year ago but the financial situation is a year where everyone suffers.

We will see how the market will develop but for sure it won’t be an early market. It’s not good if you don’t go to the Champions League, but there is still a chance and while there is a chance we should not speak about it as no chance.”

Instead, the manager focused on the importance of our returning players, and thinks with some better luck, the team can still remain competitive with Manchester City, Chelsea, and United:

We just have to use our situation better than we did this year. Yes, we had bad luck, definitely, but this was not a season where we could not have become a champion. No chance.

But could we have had five, six, seven more points, with exactly the same situation we have been in the whole time? Yes.

Getting the players back makes us better, definitely. These are our first transfers. We don’t know exactly when it will happen but it will happen.

I’d still expect Liverpool FC to plug some holes in the squad, especially if some fringe squad players leave in the summer. Expect some smart dealmaking in the same vein of Thiago and Jota, with the outlay spread out over a period of time, instead of a lump-sum payment where possible.