Jurgen Klopp: You can’t buy Liverpool’s resilience in the transfer market
Champions’ next opponents Chelsea are spending to close the gap, but that won’t influence recruitment decisions at Anfield
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Your support makes all the difference.Jurgen Klopp has reiterated Liverpool’s transfer business will not be dictated by what their rivals are doing in the market this summer and underscored that his title-winning squad have characteristics that can’t be bought.
Chelsea are the visitors to Anfield on Wednesday when the Merseysiders will be presented with the Premier League trophy and Frank Lampard has been active in rebuilding his squad in an attempt to reduce the 30-point gap between the teams.
Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner have been added to an exciting young squad and the club are leading the charge for Bayer Leverkusen’s exceptionally talented Kai Havertz.
Klopp was asked whether the activity of Chelsea and others in fortifying their roster will force Liverpool to act and he emphasised the champions will only make a signing if they need to and if it is within their financial parameters.
They were planning on a relatively quiet window before coronavirus, with the economic impact of the global pandemic curtailing a deal for Werner and forcing the club to be even more surgical with their planning.
Klopp stressed he is content with his group of players, while offering a reminder that Liverpool’s measured approach to recruitment may not be popular, but it is successful.
“I’m completely happy with my squad, 100 percent,” he said. “I was last year when everybody asked us to sign him and him and him. Because of our reasons, we didn’t do it. It’s not that we didn’t want to do it.
“We try to make right decisions constantly, and then Covid-19 came and changed the situation again and not for the better – for all business in the world, not just football.
“It’s not that we don’t think we cannot improve, even on a transfer basis. We just do what is possible for us and what we are able to do.
“Other teams, if they invest then maybe they know more about the future, I don’t know.
“The main difference between us and other teams this year has been consistency. You saw how tight the game was when we won away at Chelsea 2-1. Now they are 30 points behind us, but there is not a 30-point gap on the pitch on a daily basis when we play each other.
“They can really play football and could have won that game as well. But my boys were resilient like mad, they put absolutely everything into the game and that was the difference. I don’t know if you can buy that on the transfer market.”
Klopp highlighted the fact that Liverpool’s advancement has been based on their own methodology, rather than copying the template of other teams. They will not deviate from the principles that have helped end a 30-year wait for the title.
“We had to build this as well, that needed time obviously. It’s not about spending, it’s about having the right team for the next season, but always based on your own situation,” he said.
“We cannot buy just because other teams buy, we cannot buy because everybody wants us to. We can buy if we have the money for it, if we have the need for it, all that stuff. Then, we will be there. If one of these things is not there, then we will not. We will go again and will not use it as an excuse.
“Imagine last year when we had 97 points, all of you – what would have been your recommendation to me? Who should we bring in to have a chance to close the one-point gap to City? There would have been a lot of recommendations out there, for sure. But we didn’t [buy anyone]. And you saw what happened.
“We will have a lot of tests next year, 100 percent, like we had this year and the year before. We have to make sure that we are ready for that.
“Some of these things can be decided maybe in the transfer market but for sure not all of them.”
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