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Klopp - We are not in 'Fantasy Land' like City

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peekay

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Jurgen Klopp not jealous of rivals splashing cash on players, saying Liverpool do not live in 'fantasy land'

Chris Bascombe

27 JULY 2019 • 10:30PM

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says his club cannot afford to play ‘fantasy football’ in the transfer market and insisted he is not glancing enviously at the spending of rivals.

After record-breaking deals in 2018, Liverpool are being more prudent this summer, with Klopp’s decision to largely stick with the squad he has based on necessity as much as choice.

He has explained how the lavish contracts handed out to retain star players absorbed much of this year’s budget, despite substantial rewards from winning the Champions League. As a club, Liverpool have also invested in the clubs infrastructure with the £100m loan to extend the Main Stand still to be fully repaid and new training ground under construction.

Klopp has often pointed out how the deals for Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson - often used as proof he is prepared to be a chequebook manager when it suits - were subsidised by the sale of Philippe Coutinho. That deal was facilitated by the transfer-merry-go-around which began when Neymar left Barcelona for Paris St Germain for £200 million, the Spanish champions using that cash to buy Coutinho.

In keeping with club policy under Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool are taking a longer-term view. The club is prepared to wait for favourable market conditions to get the players who will enhance the starting line-up rather than squander cash on secondary targets.

“This year is not the end of Liverpool FC,” said Klopp. “Next year there will be another transfer window. This team is really good and we have invested a lot in it. Now we have to work with that.”

That will not stop the debate that being European champions offers a brief window of opportunity that does not come often. Liverpool has never been such an attractive destination – especially with Klopp as coach – and the drop in performances without the front three is evident, regardless of the mitigating factors in tough pre-season conditions.

But Klopp has never questioned his club’s financial juggling and is not going to do so now, especially as the formula has not hampered Liverpool’s ability to compete for the top honours, nor sign some of the biggest cheques at the right time.

“I can’t say anything about what other teams are doing,” said Klopp. “I don’t know how they do it. We have to pay bills. Sorry. Everybody has to pay bills; we have to pay bills. We invested money in this team. Now it looks like we are not. But we are not in this fantasia land where you just get whatever you want. You cannot do it constantly. It looks like there are four clubs in the world who can do it constantly. Madrid, Barcelona, (Man) City and PSG. Whatever they need, they do. You cannot compare that. That is the situation.

“It is not a criticism. I know how people will take it, that I am jealous or whatever. I am not at all jealous. There is no guarantee we won't draw with Leicester on a snowy pitch because we make five new signings. There is no guarantee. There will be average games – but that doesn’t mean we need different players. It only means we need a team that is ready that day. And that is what we have to do. We have to make sure.”

Liverpool are still hoping to recruit a versatile left-sided player for the first team squad, but not necessarily a guaranteed starter. It will need to be someone accepting of back-up status.

Klopp's says constant demands to freshen his line-up are disrespectful to those already at the club.

"Shall we sell five players to make space for five new ones?" he said.

"Send me a list and tell me who the ones you want to have out. They would send back a blank paper because they want to keep all and bring in the next ones."

Liverpool face Napoli in Edinburgh on Sunday as their warm-up continues ahead of next weekend's Community Shield against Manchester City.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...jealous-rivals-splashing-cash-players-saying/

We definitely are not signing anyone.
 
Jurgen Klopp not jealous of rivals splashing cash on players, saying Liverpool do not live in 'fantasy land'

Chris Bascombe

27 JULY 2019 • 10:30PM

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says his club cannot afford to play ‘fantasy football’ in the transfer market and insisted he is not glancing enviously at the spending of rivals.

After record-breaking deals in 2018, Liverpool are being more prudent this summer, with Klopp’s decision to largely stick with the squad he has based on necessity as much as choice.

He has explained how the lavish contracts handed out to retain star players absorbed much of this year’s budget, despite substantial rewards from winning the Champions League. As a club, Liverpool have also invested in the clubs infrastructure with the £100m loan to extend the Main Stand still to be fully repaid and new training ground under construction.

Klopp has often pointed out how the deals for Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson - often used as proof he is prepared to be a chequebook manager when it suits - were subsidised by the sale of Philippe Coutinho. That deal was facilitated by the transfer-merry-go-around which began when Neymar left Barcelona for Paris St Germain for £200 million, the Spanish champions using that cash to buy Coutinho.

In keeping with club policy under Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool are taking a longer-term view. The club is prepared to wait for favourable market conditions to get the players who will enhance the starting line-up rather than squander cash on secondary targets.

“This year is not the end of Liverpool FC,” said Klopp. “Next year there will be another transfer window. This team is really good and we have invested a lot in it. Now we have to work with that.”

That will not stop the debate that being European champions offers a brief window of opportunity that does not come often. Liverpool has never been such an attractive destination – especially with Klopp as coach – and the drop in performances without the front three is evident, regardless of the mitigating factors in tough pre-season conditions.

But Klopp has never questioned his club’s financial juggling and is not going to do so now, especially as the formula has not hampered Liverpool’s ability to compete for the top honours, nor sign some of the biggest cheques at the right time.

“I can’t say anything about what other teams are doing,” said Klopp. “I don’t know how they do it. We have to pay bills. Sorry. Everybody has to pay bills; we have to pay bills. We invested money in this team. Now it looks like we are not. But we are not in this fantasia land where you just get whatever you want. You cannot do it constantly. It looks like there are four clubs in the world who can do it constantly. Madrid, Barcelona, (Man) City and PSG. Whatever they need, they do. You cannot compare that. That is the situation.

“It is not a criticism. I know how people will take it, that I am jealous or whatever. I am not at all jealous. There is no guarantee we won't draw with Leicester on a snowy pitch because we make five new signings. There is no guarantee. There will be average games – but that doesn’t mean we need different players. It only means we need a team that is ready that day. And that is what we have to do. We have to make sure.”

Liverpool are still hoping to recruit a versatile left-sided player for the first team squad, but not necessarily a guaranteed starter. It will need to be someone accepting of back-up status.

Klopp's says constant demands to freshen his line-up are disrespectful to those already at the club.

"Shall we sell five players to make space for five new ones?" he said.

"Send me a list and tell me who the ones you want to have out. They would send back a blank paper because they want to keep all and bring in the next ones."

Liverpool face Napoli in Edinburgh on Sunday as their warm-up continues ahead of next weekend's Community Shield against Manchester City.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...jealous-rivals-splashing-cash-players-saying/

We definitely are not signing anyone.
Klopp has literally stated this was not the case : Klopp has often pointed out how the deals for Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson - often used as proof he is prepared to be a chequebook manager when it suits - were subsidised by the sale of Philippe Coutinho.

However it looks like this is the important takeaway that you can't really argue with (except for backup for LB and the front three, and the window has 5 weeks to go yet):
"..... to get the players who will enhance the starting line-up rather than squander cash on secondary targets."
 
Klopp so clever, playing down the likelihood of any big money deals by pretending we don't have much money to spend.
 
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Sell Ox and you're up £40m, there's no way you can rely on him.
Can't believe our transfer budget was that small for wages to gulp it up
 
Klopp so clever, playing down the likelihood of any big money deals by pretending we don't have much money to spend.

That reminds me of 2003-2009. We have been taken over by some rich Sheikhs but they are keeping it under wraps as otherwise, all other clubs will fleece us.
 
I really dont think we would get that much for him, he hasnt started a game in 16 months.
True - and I don't see why we should sell him either, he was doing really well before the injury , and I expect him to get quite a few games this season. Still this will be no excuse for not signing anyone, we still need to get someone in to provide a higher level of creativity when it is required, both a good passer, and dribbler type, and able to hold their own in midfield when required. Fuck knows who or where we get that player from as he will need to be someone who will not be guaranteed regular games. So no Klopp - I can't give you a single name but I can tell you is that you need to beef up the team a little more as past evidence even under your management shows we have been short of players at different points of the season.

In all honesty - I think the financial incentives are just not there to succeed in winning a league title especially against the likes of City. I honestly think we will just dominate Europe with our team and it's Anfield crowd, and no one will be able to stop us. If we keep winning THE BIG one there is zero requirement for our owners to invest heavily. I can see us getting to another final next season.
 
We gotta sell to buy big
I don't necessarily think that's true.

I think they'll invest in the side, & as desperate as I am for them to do so, I can understand why they aren't in for any top players right now, because the prices are fucking insane.

So many big clubs are trying rebuild that there's almost no value anywhere. Whilst the market is definitely unpredictable, it's hard to imagine that the prices being paid now are the new normal.

Whilst bringing no one in does worry me, we still have the team that's just gotten to back to back cl finals, winning the last, & had an astonishingly good league run, & on top of that we have history of finding players who over perform their price tag.

The problem now, I believe, is that every player we scout is being targeted by other big clubs, as they're trying to benefit from how good we are, that combined with agents throwing our name in the pot to increase interest in their players (Pepe for example) & the current sellers market is causing any potential targets prices to increase beyond what we would consider paying.
 
Unless regulation comes in I don’t seen how things are going to change.

PSG and subsequently Barca properly fucked the market with the whole Neymar saga.

60-70M is the new 25M.
 
Unless regulation comes in I don’t seen how things are going to change.

PSG and subsequently Barca properly fucked the market with the whole Neymar saga.

60-70M is the new 25M.
I actually dont think it was Barca, it was all PSG. Barca in many ways were the victim with the Neymar stuff. I mean who the fuck comes in with 200M to buy a player, it just fucked the entire market.
 
I actually dont think it was Barca, it was all PSG. Barca in many ways were the victim with the Neymar stuff. I mean who the fuck comes in with 200M to buy a player, it just fucked the entire market.

Neymar is one of the select few players that the market could judge as an exception to the rule.

Barca normalized it by paying 100M+ for Dembele.

Once Dortmund managed to extract that from Barca every selling club began to demand similar sums.
 
I don't necessarily think that's true.

I think they'll invest in the side, & as desperate as I am for them to do so, I can understand why they aren't in for any top players right now, because the prices are fucking insane.

So many big clubs are trying rebuild that there's almost no value anywhere. Whilst the market is definitely unpredictable, it's hard to imagine that the prices being paid now are the new normal.

Whilst bringing no one in does worry me, we still have the team that's just gotten to back to back cl finals, winning the last, & had an astonishingly good league run, & on top of that we have history of finding players who over perform their price tag.

The problem now, I believe, is that every player we scout is being targeted by other big clubs, as they're trying to benefit from how good we are, that combined with agents throwing our name in the pot to increase interest in their players (Pepe for example) & the current sellers market is causing any potential targets prices to increase beyond what we would consider paying.

This problem has always existed. Others clubs may want your targets.
 
Also the drop in GBP/EUR means English clubs are spending way more to get value in Europe than they were
 
This problem has always existed. Others clubs may want your targets.
True, but over the last few years we've been the only top side who have such a high success rate of buying players at a price & then seeing them become worth many times that.

That means that teams are prepared to pay big money on anyone that we are interested in & will be willing to try to beat us to the punch any way that they can.
 
... and other clubs (and agents) have also got in on the act by chucking in Liverpool whenever drumming up interest for their players.
 
True, but over the last few years we've been the only top side who have such a high success rate of buying players at a price & then seeing them become worth many times that.

That means that teams are prepared to pay big money on anyone that we are interested in & will be willing to try to beat us to the punch any way that they can.

Are we?

Obviously there's Salah - and before that Coutinho - but who else? Mane? Anyone could have bought him, and Klopp wasn't even sure at first. Robbo?

And then...Allison? Van Dijk? We paid world-record fees for those two.
 
Are we?

Obviously there's Salah - and before that Coutinho - but who else? Mane? Anyone could have bought him, and Klopp wasn't even sure at first. Robbo?

And then...Allison? Van Dijk? We paid world-record fees for those two.

Klopp wanted Mane at Dortmund already. Robbo obviously. Fabinho can be thrown in there. Matip.
 
Are we?

Obviously there's Salah - and before that Coutinho - but who else? Mane? Anyone could have bought him, and Klopp wasn't even sure at first. Robbo?

And then...Allison? Van Dijk? We paid world-record fees for those two.
But I think people took note that the value for those two world record fee players have easily increased over the course of a single season, even taking the weird artificial inflation out of the equation.
 
Yes we bought players - but there is also something else in all this and that is the main man ... Klopp. Much of our success of getting these players and increasing their value has been down to hard work - i hate to say it but many are playing better than what their actual normal level is - apart from probably just three players - VVD, Alisson, and Robertson. I think for the likes of Real Madrid and now probably Barca, know this Klopp factor, with Real buying Nuri Şahin, and Barca's purchase of Coutinho - those players just did not make it in those teams to the levels expected. Klopp is a motivator that plays this high energy game, which can make certain players look better than what they actually are- I mean even Lalana looked like a world beater for 7 around 20 games until his body could not hack it.
 
Clearly we’re waiting for Brexit to make the UK an economic powerhouse while also devastating other European economies.

They’ll be begging us to sign their players at Xmas for chocolate buttons (Cadbury ones.. oh yes... non of that Belgian or Swiss muck).

Dantes will have a graph that confirms all this.
 
I'm cool with us not being in fantasy land, it's grim reality I'm hoping to keep staving off.
 
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