Jurgen Klopp Defends Previous Transfer Quotes After Liverpool's Spending This Summer Reaches £170m

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has admitted the transfer market has changed, after comments he made over Paul Pogba's £100m move to Manchester United back in 2016

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has admitted the transfer market has changed, after comments he made over Paul Pogba's £100m move to Manchester United back in 2016 were brought up.

Back then, Klopp slated the expensive move, saying: "If you bring one player in for £100m and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney. The day that this is football, I’m not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together.

"Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money."

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However, after Liverpool completed the signing of Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson for £66.8m, it brought the Reds' total transfer spending in the last twelve months up to £250m.

Klopp said of the criticism he received from those past comments, as quoted by Goal: "That's a problem, whatever you say, no one will forget it. It's still kind of true.

"I couldn't have imagined the world could have changed. £100m was a crazy number but since then the world changed. We signed the most expensive goalkeeper, there will be a few nice transfers [from other clubs].

"It's not about pushing my thoughts on that and not paying big money, if [Liverpool] aren't successful we have to work."

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He explained, as much as it was clearly still his belief that transfer prices were extremely high, his primary job was to ensure that the Liverpool squad was as good as it could be, and that means spending big money.

He added: "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. 

"Shaqiri, we saw him play in the World Cup, I know Stoke were relegated but he had a lot of good games."

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For Klopp, the criticism over his transfer hypocrisy didn't bother him one bit. He explained: "We don’t care what the world think, like Manchester United didn’t care what I thought [at the time of Pogba's signing]."