Jurgen Klopp refused to detail the nature of his meeting with principal owner John W Henry this week but admitted he “needs the right players” to get Liverpool back on track this summer. Fenway Sports Group chief Henry was at the London Stadium on Wednesday to oversee the Reds 2-1 win over West Ham United as the American sat alongside CEO Billy Hogan. Klopp confirmed after the game in the capital that he had spoken to Henry in the team’s hotel on Tuesday evening,
Jurgen Klopp said: “We have already had a talk. I knew that he was coming.”
Asked for insight into what the conversation with the club’s owners centred around, Klopp coyly sidestepped the question in his Friday press conference but explained how his midfield rebuild will take shape alongside some of the younger players in his engine room department like Curtis Jones (22), Harvey Elliott (20) and Stefan Bajcetic (18).
Jurgen Klopp said: “I said this already, yes. I had [a meeting]. The night before the game, we had talks. JK and JWH met. It was good, yes. You’re welcome. Any insights to give? I am not sure there is a drug that is already invented for me to do that!”
Liverpool continue to be linked with a whole host of midfielders this summer after deciding to step away from the hunt for £130m-rated Jude Bellingham at Borussia Dortmund.
Chelsea duo Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount remain of interest alongside Brighton pair Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister. Fulham’s Joao Palhinha and Matheus Nunes of Wolves are two others also under consideration alongside Bayern Munich’s Ryan Gravenberch as a midfield overhaul remains the plan at Anfield this coming transfer window.
Klopp refused to shy away from the need to recruit significantly for his midfield ranks this coming summer but believes there is plenty of quality and potential already at his disposal as he laughed off social media criticism of both his squad and team selections for certain games.
Jurgen Klopp added: “It is good that in the case that we make the decisions (over team and recruitment) and we don’t let the people make the decisions who write on social media commentaries because that is the only one we hear. If you go to social media and look there you think: “Oh my god! There is no bigger problem in the world than our midfield!’ I understand it 100%. Somebody showed me after the last game we played, a thing on Instagram on wherever and what people write about our line-up and not a lot of them wanted Curtis Jones on the pitch or Cody Gakpo on the pitch and when they saw Joel Matip is playing they say they will watch the other game and these are people who like us, usually! I understand that this season makes people nervous, I understand that. We were not ourselves in big parts of the season, but we still have to make good decisions and not panic decisions where we say: ‘That’s it for him! He will never come back and play football for us again.’ That is not how it is. That is why I said that whatever we do in the summer, it will not be enough for these people in the first place, so that is the job and we have to make decisions on what we know and on the basis of the things we know. That is exactly what we will do. We have a lot of potential in this team and we didn’t show it enough this year, but we have a lot of potential in this team and we will keep that, use that, improve that and bring new players in. That is both possible, I think. I am really pleased with Harvey because he has played big spells of the season and was our most consistent player for spells. Curtis has shown up now and Stefan was really a revelation like ‘Ooof! Who is that!? Oh my God, he is really good!’ It is all good but other players have played good football as well and not all of them are too old and stuff like this, but you need experience in a team as well. We will be improved after pre-season, this year will help us as well after all the other intense years, that were intense for different reasons. This year was intense as well but at least we didn’t play as many games as the years before and that is something we have to use as well. We want to go back to big finals, to big occasions, all these kinds of things. For that we have to work hard, a lot and we will do that and we need the right players and that is what we will have as well.”
