Klopp Certain Liverpool “Will Not Lose” Stars This Summer

Liverpool have signed Mohamed Salah to improve the starting eleven. They picked up the promising Dmonic Solanke and and soon expect to bring in Andrew Robertson to battle for minutes with James Milner on the left. It hasn’t been the blockbuster summer the club wanted—and are still hoping for—but it’s not been a disaster.

Particularly when one considers the one thing the club haven’t had to do. Namely, this summer there’s been no talk of potentially selling one of last season’s key players. It’s easy to take that for granted, perhaps, but not every club competing with Liverpool at the top of the Premier League is having it stress-free on that front.

“Not only with Phil [Coutinho],” Jürgen Klopp noted when he was asked about the importance of holding on to his top players at an early morning press conference from Hong Kong. “But this is a good thing to talk about in the transfer window because everybody thinks improving is only about bringing in new players.”

Top four rivals Arsenal are struggling to hold on to their best player, Alexis Sanchez. He’s on the last year of his deal and making public statements about not wanting to wait a year to play in the Champions League, leaving the Gunners a choice of keeping an unhappy player they’d lose on a free or selling him, likely to a rival.

Tottenham, meanwhile, have lost their starting right back and fans are increasingly worried about how little their club have done in the market. Even Chelsea have question marks, with Diego Costa on his way out and the club missing on the man meant to replace him when Romelu Lukaku went to Manchester United instead.

Liverpool haven’t done all the strengthening they had hoped to—and that they still hope to, with with club not having moved on from Naby Keïta or Virgil van Dijk as their top targets in midfield and defence respectively—but even as it stands now the club’s transfer window hasn’t been a bad one as far as Klopp is concerned.

“Nobody thinks the players we already have will make the next step,” added the Liverpool manager. “This is also a nice idea I think. We use the transfer window, of course, because it gives us an opportunity, but the main thing I think about is how we can make the next step with the players we had last season.

“The good news is that actually we didn’t lose—and we will not lose—a player we want to keep this summer. That’s the best news actually and then we’ll see who can bring into the squad.”