Jurgen Klopp insists that his 2016 comments criticising the eagerness to splash the cash in modern football are still true despite his own lavish spending in recent times at Liverpool.
When Manchester United signed Paul Pogba in 2016, Klopp was critical and adamant he would "even do it differently if I could spend that money".
But, since then, Liverpool has made Virgil van Dijk and Alisson the most expensive defender and goalkeeper of all time, while the club has also spent more than £40million each on Mohamed Salah, Naby Keita and Fabinho.
And, following the signing of Alisson on Thursday, Klopp's 2016 quotes resurfaced and were put to him in a news conference, drawing a fiery response.
READ: Salah is fully recovered and full of joy – Klopp
"That's a problem, whatever b******t you say, no one will forget it. It's still kind of true. I couldn't have imagined the world could have changed. £100m [for Pogba] was a crazy number, but since then the world changed," Klopp told reporters on Saturday.
"We signed the most expensive goalkeeper, there will be a few nice transfers [made by other clubs]. It's not about pushing through my thoughts on that and not paying big money, if Liverpool aren't successful we have to work. To improve a squad like this costs money. So far it's a really good year for us, pretty successful last year."
"Still, we need to replace players - Emre Can left, good business bringing Fabinho in. [Xherdan] Shaqiri, we saw him play in the World Cup. I know Stoke were relegated, but he had a lot of good games. We don't care what the world think, like Manchester United didn't care what I thought."
Comments
SHARE