Jurgen Klopp. The hero Liverpool need.
In recent years Liverpool’s transfer policy has been about as effective as a three-legged, one-eyed Jack Russell trying to conduct a philharmonic orchestra entirely made up of squirrels.
Well maybe a little bit better than that but not much.
With the arrival of Jurgen Klopp as manager last October there was hope among fan’s of the club that the German would impose his big personality on the transfer committee and the club would start making some of the kind of astute that Borussia Dortmund became known for during Klopp’s time there.
January came and went with no new faces, but this summer as been different.
Joel Matip, Sadio Mane, Georginio Wijnaldum, Lorius Karius, Ragnar Klavan and Alex Manninger have all arrived while there is plenty of talk that more new faces are on the way.
This week Klopp has been outspoken about the fact that he wouldn’t want a £100 million player like Paul Pogba as he feels it would unsettle the squad as a whole.
And now he has given a not overwhelmingly positive review of another Manchester United big-money signing, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, a player that Klopp managed a Dormund but evidently feels that there is nothing to be gained by trying to work with him again.
“I had that player,” Klopp told the Liverpool Echo. “If you have had players, you know more about them.
“We didn’t look for players we had already worked with. If you do that, you know their good, their bad and you wonder whether you will do it again.
“It’s not boring but you know everything about each other so how can you develop? Where is the next step? Where is the next push for development?
“We could have gone for a lot of players. But, first of all, you have to think, ‘what do I need?’”
