Klopp Talk: Liverpool Are Not “Owned by Countries or Oligarchs”

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp responded to complaints the club
haven’t spent big this summer in the transfer market.

So far this offseason, if there were to be an award handed out
for winning the transfer market, Chelsea would be almost as far
ahead as Liverpool were on the pitch last season when Jürgen
Klopp’s Reds won their first league title in three decades.

Their spending, though—as with the spending of Manchester City,
another club built on oil money—doesn’t come naturally. Especially
not during a pandemic that has a lot of others worried about
finances and the future. Of at least that’s Klopp’s take.

“For some clubs it seems to be less important how uncertain the
future is,” the Liverpool manager told The BBC’s 5 Live this week. “Owned by countries, owned by
oligarchs. That’s the truth. We’re a different kind of club, it’s
always been that way.

“We got to the Champions League final two years ago, we won the
Champions League last year and became Premier League champions by
being the club we are. So we cannot just change it overnight and
say so now we want to behave like Chelsea.”

Chelsea got a lot of credit for playing their youth last season,
but it now appears they only did so because of a transfer ban. And
so now, with the ban lifted, it’s right back to buying rather than
developing—the approach Klopp has always favoured.

And while it’s hard not to be impressed by Chelsea’s signings on
paper, it can’t be ignored that they’re spending from a position of
weakness on the pitch compared to Liverpool, having earned 59 fewer
points than the Reds over the past two seasons.

They have a gap to make up—a big gap. And they have yet fully
address their defensive issues, a far bigger problem for the London
Blues last season than fixing an attack that was never especially
broken. Plus, on paper doesn’t always translate.

“They’ve signed a lot of players,” Klopp continued on
Liverpool’s spendthrift rivals. “That can be an advantage of
course, but you cannot bring in the 11 best players in the world
and hope that just a week later they will play the best
football.

“It’s about working together on the training ground—that will
probably be an advantage for us. We’ve worked a lot with each
other. I know people don’t want to hear about that, but we did it
last year that way. We always want to improve, but there are
different ways.”

Klopp has always liked nurturing and developing talent. He has
never liked stockpiling players who won’t play. His goal at
Dortmund was always to keep his core together—a goal frequently
undone by richer domestic rivals Bayern Munich.

Here and now, Liverpool’s core remains intact it would be
difficult to improve—which cannot be said of Chelsea or any club
outspending them. Coronavirus or no, Klopp and FSG’s Liverpool are
well paired: neither is fond of spending for the sake of it.

Ideally, perhaps, the club will make a few more signings—there’s
still time. Yet it shouldn’t be overlooked how good this side
already are, and it can’t be said after the past few years that
those making the calls haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt.