MY ACCOUNT
Jurgen Klopp knows Liverpool have work to do in the transfer market, having foreseen their difficult season, but felt powerless to prevent it.
Having come so close to winning an unprecedented quadruple last year, claiming two cups and finishing as runners-up in both the Premier League and the Champions League, this campaign has been very different for Liverpool.
The Reds are down in eighth in the league, out of both domestic cups and on the brink of exiting Europe having lost 5-2 at home to Real Madrid on Tuesday.
It is anticipated the Merseyside club will be busy in the market at the end of the season, with Jude Bellingham reportedly a top target, and Klopp did not deny that as he detailed the ways in which his team must improve.
“I don’t say everything around us is bad, is wrong, not at all, but most of the things are not right as well,” he said. “That’s how it is.
“We know we have to improve. We know we have to change things. We will. We have to do something in the summer, that’s clear. For now, we just have to go through this and fight back.”
Klopp was later quizzed on his mention of the need to “do something in the summer” and launched into a long answer explaining why this season has been so difficult for Liverpool, how they must work ahead of the transfer window and their plan to first “make the best out of this season”.
Confirming the intention to do business in the window pre-dated this difficult stretch, Klopp said: “We are not that dumb that, ‘today wasn’t good, now we have to change’. It was clear, it was always clear.
“This team has a wonderful history, but the way this club is led is not by splashing the money or whatever, have a look if it works out or not. Our transfers always have to be on point.
“That makes it really tricky. We cannot make four transfers before we know who leaves the club, stuff like this.
“Last year, I knew it would be tricky. That was one of the main reasons why I signed a new contract, so people are not on top of all that and have to discuss ‘then he leaves next year’.
“It’s not because I’m that great – it would be the same situation with another coach, then it’s ‘bring Klopp back’. It’s about the club and the stability.
“Last year was not the season for a big change. We played until the last moment, and if you want to change at this club, we cannot bring in players and then realise nobody wants to leave. It doesn’t work like that.
“It was not possible to start it early, because we had final after final after final, played until the last moment of the Champions League final. Then we have a short break, then we have injuries, then the World Cup.
“So, with all the problems we knew we would have, this came on top.
“Now we are in it. I know it’s too long, for me it’s too long, because I have to face this press conference. Believe me, I don’t like to talk about it all the time. I have to think it all the time – that’s not as bad as to talk about it, to be honest, because I don’t have to read it the next day.
“That’s the situation. Now people are not happy. We try to fight through and make the best out of this season, that’s the idea, and staying as good a person as you can.
“The better you behave in a moment like this, the better times will be after it and the more useful the bad times are.
“They have to be useful, because otherwise they are useless. Imagine that in all our lives if we had not learned from our failures or learned from when things didn’t go well. We would not be the same people. We have to learn from this well, and we will.
“Now we are in this heated atmosphere, where we lose a game and it’s ‘everybody out’, we win a game, ‘give him a new contract’. I’m too old for that.
“We have to make our own plans, and that’s what we do – but based on the way this club needs it. It’s different to other clubs. That’s how it is.
“It worked out so far, and we’ll have to see if it will work still or we’ll have to adapt. That’s something for us in the offices, when we’re not on the training pitch, and for my conversation with the owners.”
