January Liverpool Signings Unlikely According to Klopp

Anyone who has watched FSG’s transfer strategy evolve over the past eight years should be unsurprised to hear that Jürgen Klopp doesn’t expect the club to do much business this January. Since the beginning, FSG and the transfer committee have shown that they are not afraid to use the winter transfer window, but only to correct their mistakes from the summer or patch any obvious holes in the squad.

Since their summer transfer business was impeccable — aside from taking a pass on Nabil Fekir for fitness reasons — it was always going to be a long shot that they’d do anything significant this winter.

“If crazy things happen then maybe we have to think new but I don’t expect that,” he said.

“At the moment it doesn’t look like we will be too busy but it all depends on injuries and things like that. In the moment we have each position twice, three times and sometimes four times covered. I don’t think there is any reason to try to do something really big like bring in another striker. We have all that we need. Our job now is to use the quality that we have and to work with it because one player doesn’t change it.”

So don’t hold your breath for a surprise Fekir announcement or anything else, unless Liverpool melt down in the next month or find themselves in the midst of an unforeseen injury crisis.

In their history with the club, FSG have had three big January transfer windows, and they all stick to a pattern:

1. January 2011 - Their first transfer window in charge of the club. They had to deal with the impending departure of Reds’ talisman Fernando Torres to rivals Chelsea. In order to do that, they took a gamble on Andy Carroll, one that was dramatic and extremely entertaining at the time, but which ultimately did not work out. Earlier in the window, they also brought in Luis Suarez — but that was them finalizing a sale that had already been in the works when they arrived.
2. January 2013 - In new manager Brendan Rodgers’ first season with the club, they failed to bring in a striker in the summer, having failed to recruit Clint Dempsey from Fulham after an embarrassing tapping-up scandal. To correct their mistake, the club brought in Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho, a move which kickstarted Rodgers’ brief but bright reign as one of the most exciting managers with one of the best teams in the world.
3. January 2018 - Tapping-up scandal 2.0 saw Liverpool fail to secure the services of world class defender, and all-around dreamboat, Virgil van Dijk from Southampton. With Klopp making it clear that he would except no substitutes, the club pulled out all the stops, breaking spending records, to get it right in the winter. They also finally ended the Coutinho saga and milked a decent amount of money out of Barcelona for the wantaway snake.

The fact is, Liverpool have yet to make any significant moves in January when they were performing well, and this winter will likely be no exception.