Klopp Talk: Reds Boss Makes Summer Transfer Window Admission

After a heavy defeat to Real Madrid this week, Liverpool head coach Jürgen Klopp spoke candidly about the “changes” that the Reds should look to make — though he does not believe this result or the league form should dramatically change the transfer strategy as planned:

We are all influenced by things recently, but we are not that dumb, it’s not like today was not that good and now we have to change. So this is clear, it was always clear. This team has a wonderful history...The way this club is led by not ‘splashing the money’, or whatever, just have a look if it works out or not, our transfers always have to be on point. That makes it really tricky.

We cannot make four transfers before we know who will leave the club and stuff like this. Last year, I said it a couple of times, I can’t remember how often I can say it, I knew it would be tricky and that was one of the main reasons why I signed a new contract, to make sure, ‘OK, come on,’ people not on top of all that have to discuss then, ‘Yeah, and then he leaves next year.’

And not because I am that great, just because imagine that same situation with another coach. Everybody would have said, ‘Bring Klopp back.’ It’s good we don’t have that. Some of them want me out, it’s fine, I can understand that as well, but it’s not about that. It’s just about the club and the stability and what we can get in.

Last year now, it was not a season for a big change. We played until the last moment and if you want to change, again, this club, we cannot just bring in new players and realize then later [that] nobody wants to leave. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t work like that.

So, that’s why it’s not possible to start it early because we had final after final after final [and] played the season until the last game [and] played the Champions League final. Then we have a short break and then we have a lot of injuries and then the World Cup. All the problems we knew we would have, this came on top. And now we are in it. I know it’s too long, and for me it’s too long, because I have to face always you in this press conference. Believe me, I don’t like to talk about it all the time, but I have to think it all the time. That’s not as bad as to talk about it, to be honest, because I don’t have to read it the next day what I think. That’s the situation. I cannot change it, that the people are not happy.

We try to fight through and make the best out of this season, that’s the idea and staying in all that period as good as a person as you can. How I said, the better you behave in a moment like this, the better the times will be after it. And the more useful the bad times are, because they have to be useful, otherwise they are completely useless.

Imagine that. In all our lives that we wouldn’t have learned from our failures, or we wouldn’t have learned from the moments when things didn’t go well. We would not be the same people, so we have to learn from this as well, and we will. But now we are in this heated atmosphere where we lose a game; everybody out. We win a game; give him a new contract. All these kind of things, be quick, I am too old for that.

We have to make our own plans and that’s what we do. But based on the way this club is led. It’s obviously different to other clubs, that’s how it is, but it worked out so far and we have to see if it will work still or if we have to adapt, let me say it like that, but that’s something for us in the offices when we are not on the training pitch. And for us, my conversations with the owners, and all these kind of things. That’s it. Nothing else. Just work.

Though Klopp hasn’t said anything outright, he does signal a potential for a shift — and reminds us that the transfer strategy cannot be reactionary, even if it has to “adapt” to the wider context.

All in all, there’s much to think about.