COMMUNITY SHIELD INSIDER Klopp: My best business this summer is keeping Salah, Firmino, Mane and Van Dijk at Anfield. Half the world is after these guys

Pog price not right

eye-watering £26m a year. With Pogba wanting at least a four-year contract, that amounts to a whopping £104m for the full deal.

Pogba’s controversial agent Mino Raiola is believed to want at least 10 per cent of any fee between the clubs for brokering the deal, putting another £15m on the bill. That adds up to a total package of £270m – a sum that has stunned Madrid.

Bernabeu President Florentino Perez doesn’t want to commit that amount of cash to signing Pogba.

Perez is wary as the future of coach Zinedine Zidane is not assured after a recent pre-season 7-3 friendly loss to rivals Atletico Madrid. JURGEN KLOPP claims keeping his Liverpool team together for another crack at the Premier League title this season has been the real transfer business of the summer.

And in an attack on critics who accuse Liverpool of failing to build on their outstanding success of last season, Klopp dismisses the idea that expensive new players would make his team any better.

The Kop boss has seen Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham all break their club transfer records this summer while Liverpool haven’t done any business for first-team players.

But he reckons warding off predators to keep Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane along with £75million defender Virgil van Dijk at Anfield beats any new arrivals hands down.

Quality

“There was never the intention to spend again because of the team we had last year which is a wonderful age group,” said Klopp (right).

“It’s only in England where you come up with ‘now bring in more quality and new faces’ and all that stuff at the end of a season.

“Divock Origi has a new contract and all the others have stayed – that is transfer business. I know people smile and even laugh about it, that’s just how it is.

“But keeping a team like this together is not easy. Half the world would like to have these guys.

“And they (other clubs) don’t throw nuts – they have money as well!

“It’s like this: we wanted to keep that team together and it means consolidation, pay the bills, play football, go for everything then after the season we can have a look what happened.

Fresh

“But this team deserves another year together – that’s how it is. So absolutely it’s a bonus just keeping these guys together for another year.

“We have fresh blood and fresh legs. Naby Keita is pretty much a new player, [Alex] Oxlade-chamberlain too, [Rhian] Brewster is a new player, Divock Origi is a new player.

“The rest can make steps and improve and then afterwards we can talk about how they develop.

“But we cannot buy the quality we have up front every summer and say ‘come on, we are bringing another one in of this quality’.

“That doesn’t work so that’s why I don’t like too much to discuss that concept.”

Liverpool, who finished a whisker behind City in the Premier League and won the Champions League in June, face Pep Guardiola’s champions in the Community Shield at Wembley today on the back of a mixed pre-season hampered by players arriving late after the Copa America and Africa Cup of Nations.

But Klopp says the answer to producing another eye-catching season is within his own squad – not the transfer market.

He says: “Six weeks ago we started to make sure we are ready for the new season. But we have no solution in the transfer market that could solve the problems we will have during the season.

“We have to face the problem, find the solutions internally, on the training pitch and go again – that’s what we will try. The problem for us has been pre-season. I don’t think any other team has had so many players at the Africa Cup and the Copa, then we have two injuries on top so then you have to make a pre-season without six key players – that’s a bit tricky.

Headache

“We would have had the same pre-season if we didn’t win the Champions League final but thank God we won it, so now let’s go.”

With the added headache of a 10-day, two- match FIFA World Club Cup in Qatar in December Klopp hopes to draw on the experience of micro-managing Liverpool’s campaign last season.

“We will see. It has to happen. We have to use it and deal with it. Last season was what we wanted because our history the year before was losing the Champions League final,” he said.

“Now we make a big line behind last season and go into the next one. But these boys will not stop. That is clear.

“On Sunday against City we have to dig in. It’ll be the first real game for us so we will see what happens.”