Jurgen Klopp has admitted he made a wrong comment after Paul Pogba’s €105 million (£89.5m) move to Manchester United in 2016.
After Pogba’s transfer back to Old Trafford from Juventus, Klopp was asked about spending such a huge sum of money on a player and he said to the media: “The day that this is football, I’m not in a job anymore.
“Other clubs can spend more money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I had that money.”
The same comments have resurfaced after Liverpool’s €127m (£110m) bid for Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Moises Caicedo, which was accepted by the Seagulls.
Caicedo, 21, has been chased by Chelsea all summer, but Liverpool have hijacked the Blues’ pursuit of the Ecuadorian and now in a better position to land his signature.
Brighton set a deadline of midnight on Thursday and revealed that the highest bidder – should their asking price be met – would land the midfielder. Liverpool’s British record bid was accepted shortly after it was submitted, according to various reports, and Caicedo is now on his way to Merseyside to undergo his medical.
During his press conference ahead of Liverpool’s Premier League opener against Chelsea, Klopp was asked about his comments from 2016 in the aftermath of his side’s record bid for Caicedo.
Replying to questions about his utterance that he would never spend £100m on a player, Klopp said: “Everything changes. Obviously do I like it? No. Do I really think that I was wrong? Yes. That’s the way it goes, it’s not great, it’s not top, but that’s the way it goes.
“It will not go the other way around again, Saudi Arabia has definitely not helped with that. I’m not blaming anybody, but that will not help as it’s another market with a lot of money.
“In the end, we as a club have to try and make sure that with our resources, with the money we have, we get the best possible team together. We all know in football it’s like that, 50% will like it and 50% will say ‘I would have done this or that.’
“We really try everything to bring together the best team or squad for us, that’s the idea and we are not in dreamland so it’s not that we can just point on players and bring them in, there’s a lot of work to do these things. Sometimes one door closes and another opens up, that happens.
“But yes, if people want to throw my quotes from 2016 no problem, that was what I thought that day, and I realise now that I was wrong, it’s easy to admit that.”
