MO, MANE Jurgen has no idea how he’ll cope without African hitmen
Former Kop star fires Warn-ing to title rivals
LIVERPOOL’S rivals have been told not to write them off.
The Reds finished third in the Premier League last term – a whopping 17 points behind title winners Manchester City.
Boss Jurgen Klopp hasn’t spent lavishly this summer, though, with the German making just one major acquisition in Ibrahima Konate, 22, snapped up from Bundesliga outfit RB Leipzig for £36million.
Liverpool’s rivals, in contrast, all splashed the cash. City brought in Jack Grealish for £100m, Chelsea paid £97.5m for Romelu Lukaku and Manchester United handed over in excess of £125m for three stars.
But former Kop ace Stephen Warnock, who played 67 games for the club, insists Klopp’s squad didn’t need a major revamp.
“What Liverpool went through injury-wise last season hit them hard,” said the ex-defender, 39.
“They were at the top of the league in December but then had a dramatic fall.
“But the squad regrouped and in hindsight I think Klopp will see he should have put Fabinho in midfield earlier and trusted the centre-backs.
“He’ll have learned from that. Once Fabinho went into midfield, Liverpool’s record was outstanding.
“People had last season down as the worst title defence in history.
“But then you look at it and realise 17 is less than Manchester City’s 18 the season before.”
Virgil van Dijk missed most of the last campaign after suffering a cruciate ligament injury following a collision with Jordan Pickford in the October Merseyside derby. But he is now back in action and has started the Reds’ first three Premier League games.
However, Warnock (left) added: “It might still take him up to three or four months to get back to his very best.”
JURGEN KLOPP has admitted that he will not be able to find a solution to Liverpool’s looming African Cup of Nations nightmare by going into the transfer market.
The Kop boss is preparing to face Leeds this afternoon without injured Brazil striker Roberto Firmino.
And in the new year Klopp will have to cope without star forwards Mo Salah and Sadio Mane for up to six weeks when they jet off to play for Egypt and Senegal respectively in the AFCON.
Guinea midfielder Naby Keita is also likely to be heading for the tournament in Cameroon after it was rearranged due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But Klopp accepts that it is unrealistic for him to bring in reinforcements in
January to soften the blow.
The German said:
“How we deal with it depends on the situation.
“At the moment,
it’s certainly not ideal and everybody knows that. Look, the African Cup of Nations is happening and they have the right to play their cup as well, like the Euros and like in South America.
“That’s completely fine. We knew it, we have to deal with it and we will deal with it. How? We will see in January. “People are now saying, ‘You have to sign two strikers of the same quality of Sadio and Mo.’
“That cannot be the solution because we cannot do that.
“So we need to find another solution for it in January.”
Liverpool were unable to cope at the back last season when they lost central defenders Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip and were unable to mount a defence of their Premier League title. This time Klopp will have to solve a problem at the opposite end of the pitch. Liverpool virtually balanced their books over the summer, signing Ibrahima Konate from RB Leipzig for £36million and raising almost £25m through the sales of Harry Wilson to Fulham, Taiwo Awoniyi to Union Berlin and Xherdan Shaqiri to Lyon.
Klopp has questioned how clubs like Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea have been able to splash the cash following the economic fall-out from the pandemic.
The futures of Van Dijk, keeper
Alisson, Fabinho, Trent AlexanderArnold and Jordan Henderson have also been secured by new long-term deals in other positive developments.
And Klopp insists he is happy about how Liverpool go about their transfer business and that he does not care about how rival clubs operate.
He added: “I was surprised – but it’s a personal thing – that Cristiano Ronaldo left Juventus because I didn’t know that would happen. But that’s it.
“Clubs do business and when I talk about it, my problem is with my English because from time to time I annoy some other managers.
“I don’t want to annoy them. I’m not interested in it, why should I?
“I say something, I think it’s right and then two days later I hear the response from somebody and think, ‘Why is he on his toes?’
“Honestly, I couldn’t care less what other clubs are doing.
“In a few weeks I will have been here for six years and I signed up for this way when I arrived.
“In that time, we have been quite successful. Not the most successful in the world, but still quite successful.
“We thought it made sense that we sign up our squad.
“That is not as spectacular as all the rest around but I cannot change that because you cannot do transfer business just to be in a circus.
“Other teams signed players, fine, but now we will play them and we will see what we can
do against them.”