KLOPP’S NEW YEAR POSER LOOMS
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 had been preparing to face Leeds without Brazilian trio Fabinho,alisson and Roberto Firmino until the Brazilian FA agreed to waive their automatic five day rule.
But in the New Year, Klopp will have to cope without star strikers
Mohamed Salah (right) 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.
Klopp said: “At the moment, it’s not ideal and everybody knows that.
“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 defensively last season when they lost centre-backs Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip and were unable to mount a defence of the Premier League title.
This time, the German will have to solve a problem at the opposite end of the pitch.
Liverpool virtually balanced their books in the summer, signing Ibrahima Konate from Red Bull Leipzig for £36million and raising almost £25m through the sales of Harry Wilson, Taiwo Awoniyi and Xherdan Shaqiri.
And Klopp insists is happy about how Liverpool go about their transfer business and that he does not care about how rival clubs operate.
Klopp said: “Honestly, I couldn’t care less what other clubs are doing.
“In a few weeks I am six years here and I signed up for this way when I arrived.we thought it made sense that we sign up our squad.
“That is not as spectacular as all the rest but I cannot change that because you cannot do transfer business just to be in a circus.”