Jurgen Klopp has insisted Liverpool are not preparing any kind of bid for Barcelona’s German goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, instead he wants to put faith in current custodian Simon Mignolet, despite his costly mistakes in recent times.
The Anfield boss also revealed he has no plan to move for a potential return of Mario Balotelli to Liverpool until next summer.
Last November Spanish newspaper Sport claimed that Klopp was keen to sign the Barcelona shot-stopper in the January transfer window because of serious doubts over the credibility of both Mignolet and Adam Bogdan.
Klopp subsequently denied those rumours, but speculation remained on very high note amid reports that Ter Stegen is ready to leave Nou Camp after being seen as a second-choice option under Barcelona boss Luis Enrique. He has been given some match time in Champions League and Copa del Rey while Claudio Bravo remained the preferred choice in the league outings.
The Mirroralso suggested recently that the La Liga giants may consider selling the keeper in the January window for around £20m, although the Merseysiders were interested to fork out only £12m. It is now believed that the deal collapsed due to this reason.
When asked about these ongoing rumours in the press meet ahead of the Capital One Cup fixture against Stoke City, Jurgen Klopp responded in a negative note.
“No,” he continued. “We have some problems at this moment but thank God not around the goalkeeper position so everything is okay. It’s how I said plenty of time on the goalkeeper position and the situation is more than okay, we are satisfied. I know both goalkeepers.”
“Simon Mignolet is a really, really, really good goalkeeper. Number two in Belgium – or number one we will see – but maybe number two at the European Championships. It’s a big football country in this moment so he’s had a good education in all parts of life, especially goalkeeping. I spoke a lot with John Achterberg and things like this so we have solutions in our on squad.” The notion is quite clear, Mignolet remains in the safe zone, atleast for the time being.
In the meantime, Italian media reports are claiming that Mario Balotelli all set to return to Anfield after his agent Mino Raiola revealed, the striker would have a good future at Liverpool under new boss Jurgen Klopp, having being sent out on loan to AC Milan last summer by former manager Brendan Rodgers.
But when asked about Balotelli’s possible return, Jurgen Klopp replied with a smile: “Oh my god, at this moment, I don’t have time and no capacity to think about things for next summer. Maybe we will have a talk with his agent but it’s nothing I can think about in this moment.”
“We have to think about the things we can change in this moment and the games we can play in this moment, nothing else.”
The energetic Liverpool manager, however, refused to rule out any possibility of new additions this month amid reports linking the expected imminent arrival of Marko Grujic.
“You have to wait until the next press conference,” Klopp also said. “But it’s only a few hours away so.”