CITY Liverpool boss a real Klopp out when it comes to cash

AS football snobs go, you’ll go a long way to find worse than bitter rivals Manchester United and Liverpool.

And now Jurgen Klopp has discovered Jose Mourinho’s two-faced knack of complaining bitterly about other clubs’ spending while happily smashing transfer records himself, the Reds of Manchester and Merseyside have become even more alike.

The howls of protest which greet every penny of “oil money”the Blues spend have been as loud in Anfield as they are in Old Trafford. And yet, curiously, it appears that in the last couple of years it has been United and Liverpool who have been “ruining football”.

The Scousers have just smashed City’s world record spend in a calendar year by splashing out around £248million, about £9million more than City spent in 2017.

They now possess the world’s most expensive goalkeeper in £65million Alisson, costing nearly twice as much as City’s Ederson. They have the world’s dearest defender in Virgil Van Dijk, who cost £14million more than City’s Aymeric Laporte.

United have the most costly midfielder in the country – Paul Pogba cost a staggering £39million more than Kevin de Bruyne – and the most expensive striker, with £75million man Romelu Lukaku dwarfing the £30million City paid for Sergio Aguero. So between them, the two clubs who most often point fingers at City for their outrageous outlay, have the market cornered when it comes to inflationary spending.

They are also gaining a monopoly on hypocrisy, after Jurgen Klopp’s remarkable change of heart.

Remember, this was the man who vowed to walk away from football if his job involved spending big money. He was referring to United’s outlay on Pogba, but the implication included City. “Do I have to do it differently to that? Actually, I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money,” he said two years ago, with an air of Teutonic nobility.

“I want a special team spirit – I don’t feel it is necessary, I want it.”

It was the kind of emotional pseudo-babble that normally ends up on one of those banners of which the more melodramatic Kopites are so fond.

But never mind, because Herr Klopp was recently woken in the middle of the night by the startling revelation that spending tons of money – a world record no less – is actually a really GOOD thing.

By sheer coincidence, this roadto-Damascus arrived with the Liverpool board’s decision to back him in the transfer market with hard cash.

His breathtaking hypocrisy exposed, Klopp said he had simply changed his mind, and didn’t care what the world thought, sounding a bit like a spoilt schoolgirl.

After all the preening self-congratulation about doing things the right way, Liverpool have gone out and spent around £248million on Van Dijk, Allison, Naby Keita, Fabinho and Xherdan Shaqiri.

Fair play to them – that squad should make it a far more interesting Premier League next season.

And then there is Jose Mourinho, who laid into City for “buying full backs for the price of strikers.”

The fact that £45million full back Kyle Walker proved crucial in City winning the title, while £75million striker Lukaku could only fire United to within 19 points, seems to have escaped him.

So, with United and Liverpool driving up prices and smashing transfer records, perhaps City will be left alone? Don’t count on it.