Klopp Unconcerned About Barcelona’s Continued Pursuit of Coutinho

In a season where Liverpool have finally fought their way back into the Champions League, and will be fighting not just to do well in the competition but to stay there for years to come, manager Jürgen Klopp has a lot on his plate. Of course, the higher-ups at FC Barcelona know this, which is why they have been striving to make their pursuit of Anfield superstar Philippe Coutinho as unsettling as possible to the player, manager, and club. But after three confirmed bids, with at least one more still to come, Liverpool have held firm and it appears that Coutinho will be staying on Merseyside for at least one more season.

So what does the boss think of Barcelona’s tactics and their continued courting of arguably his best player? We’ll never really know, but publicly he claims he’s too busy to be bothered and, well, he’s certainly not wrong about that.

“To be disappointed about different things, you need to have expectations,” Klopp said. “I don’t have expectations, I don’t think about other clubs to be honest.

“We all have our own problems. If we think we have to do something, we do it. In this moment I would have preferred we finished our business six weeks ago. Let all the rest of the world do what they do. It’s getting more and more different and difficult.

“I don’t judge what other clubs are doing. I am not sure there was one easy day since we started pre-season. Always something changes.

“All the discussions about Phil and then in the same moment Adam Lallana gets injured. It was like ‘what?’ I don’t think anyone can expect that we are prepared for this. The team have handled it all brilliantly so far.”

It’s only four games in and the frailties of this side have been on display -- especially in the back — but they haven’t lost yet. They’ve also conquered the first big hurdle of the season by making it into the Champions League group stages.

Their next test is against Arsenal on Sunday. Last season, the team went undefeated by another top seven team. Hopefully they can continue their undefeated record again this season as well.