Jurgen Klopp Swipes at United Spending £100m on a Player

According to the London School of Economics, Liverpool FCare the eight most valuable football club in the whole world. Forbes ranks the Reds news as the 41st most valuable sports franchise on the planet. With such lofty status comes extremely high expectations for winning and winning with brand name players.

Or at least signing big names in the summer transfer window. Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp doesn’t see it that way however.

Tonight he seemingly took a swipe at Liverpool’s hated rivals,Manchester United, as they are very likely closing in on signing Paul Pogba for a reported £100 million + transfer fee. Klopp says he would never spend that much money on a player.

“If you bring one player in for £100m and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney,” he said.

“The day that this is football, I’m not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together.

“That is how everybody in football understands it. You always want to have the best, but building the group is necessary to be successful.

“Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money.

“I don’t know exactly how much money we could spend because nobody has told me, ‘No, you can’t do this.’

“If I spend money, it is because I am trying to build a team, a real team. Barcelona did it. You can win championships, you can win titles, but there is a manner in which you want it.”

It reaffirms comments that Klopp made very recently.

“If we go for players and there is obviously no chance, there is no point,” Klopp told reporters about a couple weeks ago.”

“Look for players you can have and make the best of it. I am 100 percent happy with the guys we have brought in until now.”

“This period in every year is one of a lot of expectations. Everyone expects big names and a big improvement because of big names and if you don’t know the players it’s like ‘What are we doing? What are they doing?’”

“Nobody thinks about the good games we played last season,” he added.

“They only think United or City have taken this player and we have taken what’s-his-name, but for us it is about creating and building a team for next year.”

“We have to prove that our thinking about the team is right. We have to build a special bond with the right mentality.”

“It is using experience, using the base and not killing the base and starting completely new.”

Klopp has added four players this summer transfer window; with more additions expected. None of the four players Liverpool has signed, Sadio Mane, Joel Matip, Marko Grujic, Georginio Wijnaldum and Loris Karius, are household names, but Mane comes the closest to reaching that status.

The former Southampton man was a big money signing, as he cost the club £30 million.

Make no mistake about it, as of right now, Jurgen Klopp, not any one of his individual players, is the single biggest star on the team. Klopp did say Sunday though that the Reds are not done adding to the squad this summer. The German said he doesn’t know if he’ll more signings will happen before the transfer window closes.

“If I had to guess I would say rather no, but I don’t know actually because it’s a long time until the 31st of August and I have no idea,” Klopp said in an exclusive interview with ESPN FC.

“[The] 31st of August we have a few friendlies of course and few test games and then we have, one, two, maybe three — I’m not sure — Premier League games.”

“So we will see. We will see how the players react on my decisions again because we will have more players than 11 for sure, and then you have to accept a few decisions and you have to take it as an opportunity.”

“To develop a team never ends so, you have only result, result, result, but then you will have to again decide. That’s how it is. So we will see. I don’t think we’ll have a lot. But of course everyone knows about it maybe on the outgoing side will happen a little bit … yeah I have no idea in the moment.”