Jurgen Klopp has made a dig at summer targets Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo, claiming that Liverpool were ‘lucky’ to miss out on the pair.
The German manager made the comments at a test event for the opening of the club’s newly expanded Anfield Road stand, addressing a crowd of approximately 7,000 from the pitch.
In the summer window, Liverpool saw midfielders Jordan Henderson and Fabinho leave the club and had gone head-to-head with Chelsea to sign Caicedo and Lavia, who snubbed the Reds, ultimately joining Chelsea for a combined fee of £173million.
Instead, Klopp brought in Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wataru Endo, who have all impressed for the Reds this season, helping them leapfrog Arsenal at the top of the league.
And speaking on his summer business, Klopp told the fans inside Anfield: ‘The summer we had a few strange things happen in the transfer market but here, between us, I can say, “My god, were we lucky, eh?”.
‘We didn’t know that in that moment and it didn’t feel like it in that moment, but yeah, I’m really happy that it worked out, but you never know before.”
The Liverpool manager joked: ‘We obviously realised that other central defensive midfielders don’t want to join Liverpool, you see what happens, and then we found [Wataru] Endo. He’s an exceptional player.’
More to follow…
