Klopp knows it’s time to make spending spree pay
JURGEN KLOPP admits the pressure is on to win silverware next season after splashing the cash this summer.
The Liverpool boss has spent nearly £175m on new talent ahead of his third full season in charge at Anfield.
He has bolstered his squad by shelling out a world record £65m on goalkeeper Alisson, along with big-money deals for midfielders Fabinho and Naby Keita, and attacker Xherdan Shaqiri, in a busy transfer window.
The Kop kings finished 25 points behind champions Manchester City last season, while they came tantalisingly close to winning the Champions League, only to lose to Real Madrid in the final.
But Klopp knows that close is no longer good enough for a team without a trophy since lifting the League Cup in 2012.
Klopp said: “We expect more from ourselves. We will go again for the championship and each kind of cup, but that does not mean I can sit here and say we will get it.
“We have the highest ambitions, 100 per cent. It is the next step. We need to be ready for that. I cannot give guarantees here but I understand if people think that.
“I know about the expectations and that is completely normal. First of all, we have to play the football that gives us an opportunity to win something.
“I am confident we can build on last season. It’s not that we lost things completely but you have to work on it to get it back.
“I am not in doubt about our basis or that we will reach it again. I want to have the best start ever but we all know that something can happen and then everything is questioned in a second.
“I am in for the start of a third season and in each season there was one period when people questioned me or our progress. In the end it was okay. I am prepared for these moments.
“The new players will make us stronger, 100 per cent. How? By starting, coming from the bench, the depth of the squad.”
Klopp believes consistency and the ability to rotate his starting XI will be key to chasing down Pep Guardiola’s recordbreaking City side in the title race next season.
Liverpool struggled to rotate key players last season when injuries hit key men such as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Emre Can, who has now joined Juventus.
But the Liverpool boss reckons he now has the numbers and the quality to be able to freshen up his side whenever he needs to.
He said: “It is not just that we have to be more consistent, we have to create circumstances where we can be more consistent.
“Nobody is consistent with 11 players. What we are working on is the depth of the squad because you need it.
“The first part of the season, when we did the rotation and we were quite active with it, I think we did six or seven changes from one game or the other, we still had quality on the pitch that felt perfect.
“We need to make sure we can do that much longer over the season and that is only possible if you have the squad.
“That’s the situation. Create the circumstances that we can be more consistent, and to improve individually and as a group.
“Other teams, of course, will do transfer business as well. They will not be weaker than last year.
“City brought in Riyad Mahrez. I did not hear that they lost one player so far. So it means the quality of last year plus Mahrez. That’s a nice plan as well.
“United will go for it too and that’s completely normal.”