Jurgen Klopp has assured Liverpool fans that the club is prepared to spend heavily in the summer transfer market, as they chase England midfielder Jude Bellingham as part of the German’s ‘inevitable’ rebuilding at Anfield. The Reds’ manager also didn’t hesitate when asked if his team would be willing to spend more than £100 million on a single player, deftly declining to rule out such extravagant spending.
Liverpool have endured a frustrating season, as they face a campaign which they will be ending trophyless after being in contention of a quadruple last season. They next face a trip to bitter rivals Manchester City and for Klopp’s team to close the gap on fourth-place Tottenham Hotspur, they need to win this game. The Merseysiders sit sixth in the Premier League, seven points behind Spurs with two games in hand.
Klopp reignited Jude Bellingham hope with reassuring spending statement
At his pre-match presser on Friday ahead of their trip to the Etihad, Klopp refused to say whether Liverpool would be willing to spend more than £100 million on a single player, such as top summer target Jude Bellingham, but he gave optimism to fans hoping for a revamp at Anfield in the upcoming transfer window. In response to the question, with Jude Bellingham valued above the triple-figure amount, he said:
“I will not answer the question [of a £100m signing] because we never speak about these kind of things. The club will spend in the summer, that’s what I can say definitely. The club will spend in the summer, definitely. For who and how many and stuff like this, there is nothing to say about, really.”
When Manchester City paid £100 million for Jack Grealish in the summer of 2021, Klopp implied that his Liverpool would never be able to match such extravagant spending and stated that “we have to do it our own way”. But now that he has realised how urgent it is to rebuild his team, and that a move for his top priority target Jude Bellingham is bound to demand a fee more than what City paid for Grealish, he has hinted that the summer would be busy, claiming that negotiations with some of his top targets have been “positive”. He added:
“It was good. On the player side, it was positive, I would say. But it’s talks, not decisions…we are busy, you can imagine. I am long enough in the business to know how these things develop. It’s clear after a specific amount of time that you need to shuffle things and kind of start anew.
“That is completely normal, it happens all the time, it’s just rare nowadays that it happens with the same manager because people realise when you sack a manager and bring in a new manager, things change and you readjust the squad. After seven years it was clear that we have to do it.”
Klopp has long promised that big changes will be made at the conclusion of this campaign, where Liverpool have struggled both domestically and internationally. While Naby Keita, Roberto Firmino, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will all be allowed to leave the club for free transfers, the Reds are targeting at least two more arrivals on top of Jude Bellingham, including Chelsea’s Mason Mount and Matheus Nunes of Wolves.