Jürgen Klopp Defends Liverpool’s “Different” Transfer Approach

Liverpool have had a quiet summer in the transfer market, moving quickly to fill their biggest need by signing Ibrahima Konaté from RB Leipzig early on but since having gone quiet bar the departure of a handful of fringe players.

In the meantime, their rivals for the Premier League title at top four places have been doing business, leaving some fans anxious and perhaps a little bit jealous. Manager Jürgen Klopp, though, isn’t especially bothered by what their rivals are doing, saying Liverpool have their own approach, one that he believes will continue to bring them success.

“The transfer market has been interesting,” Klopp told Norway’s TV2. “We have tried to extend contracts with key players, something we will continue to try. Some clubs have a different approach, which from the outside may be more exciting, but extending contracts with good players is a challenge in itself in today’s football.”

With Liverpool’s injury struggles last season—and the resulting hit to results—it can perhaps be easy to overlook that for the first half of the season and then down its final stretch this is a group that was in the kind of form that would have seen them neck and neck with title winners Manchester City in the final table.

It’s a group that the year before won the Premier League in dominant fashion, that won the Champions League the season before, and that in those two years racked up 196 points in domestic competition.

Setting aside last season’s difficult middle, this Liverpool side has, alongside City, been well clear of any of their domestic competitors for three seasons as well as one of the most dangerous sides in European competition. Setting aside last season’s difficult middle, this Liverpool side isn’t playing catch-up, it’s the side that everyone else is chasing.

“Let’s go through the squad,” Klopp continued. “Do you want a new centre back? Goalkeeper? We already have good players. In midfield, we have players with a lot of experience: Thiago, Fabinho, Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita. In addition, we have exciting young players in Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones.

“In attack we have Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, Xherdan Shaqiri, Takumi Minamino, and Divock Origi. If you want to buy such players, you have to spend a lot. We do not have to do that, because the players are already here.”

A few of those players have question marks—in midfield there are fitness questions, and in attack a few of the names are either likely to move on or feel like perhaps they should with their Liverpool careers having at least appeared to have stalled out—but on the whole there is the kind of quality and depth most of their rivals would be jealous of.

Already, there is a situation where without a second unprecedented injury crisis, players like Jones and Elliott and Oxlade-Chamberlain and Minamino will struggle to make the bench most weeks. And so barring a deal too good to pass up in the transfer window’s final weeks, this is the group Liverpool will run out with again.

“You have to make changes from time to time, but then there must be room to do it,” the manager added. “We do not want more players. If something happens somewhere then something can happen somewhere else, but for now it makes no sense to add more players.”