Jurgen Klopp does not expect Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland or Jadon Sancho to make big-money transfers this summer.
Liverpool have been linked with moves for Borussia Dortmund duo Haaland and Sancho, and Paris Saint-Germain’s global star Mbappe in the coming months.
However, with the Coronavirus pandemic hitting most clubs’ finances hard, Klopp believes we are in for ‘a really strange’ summer when it comes to the transfer market.
When Klopp was asked if he knew what would be possible transfer wise in the summer yet, Klopp smiled and responded: “Yeah, not a lot.
“It is always how it is. What happens depends on the business, if someone wants to leave, if we sell, stuff like this. That’s why we can never really plan early.
“Not playing [in the] Champions League [next season] doesn’t help obviously, but it is not our biggest problem.
“The market will be really strange. I hear a lot about big-money moves, is Mbappe going or not? Haaland, Sancho, these kinds of things. I don’t see that happening a lot this summer because the football world is still not in the same place it was before.
“Getting players back [from injury] makes us already better. These are our first transfers. We don’t know exactly when that will happen, but it will happen. All the rest, we have to see.
“If we don’t go to the Champions League [next season] it is not good but there is still a chance. But if not, then we have to deal with that.”
The 2020/21 campaign finished with Klopp’s men lifting the Premier League crown but they currently find themselves 23 points below the new champions Manchester City.
Sixth-place Liverpool still have a chance of securing Champions League football though. They are seven points below Chelsea in fourth but the Reds do have two games in hand.
Liverpool’s hopes of retaining the title were severely damaged by long-term absences for the likes of centre-back pairing Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez and a host of other injuries to key players such as Jordan Henderson and Fabinho.
Klopp acknowledged the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City have more financial power than Liverpool in the transfer market this summer but insists it is not a situation he will ‘moan or cry about’.
Klopp said: “A year ago nobody knew how football will go on. One year later, people speak about ‘what can we do in the transfer market?’
“People talk about changing the structure completely, like the German model. Well, I can tell you the budget will go down massively. Having more say in the club, changing the structure and the ownership model, and then at the same time signing Haaland for £150 million? That doesn’t work together.
“We have to use our situation better than we did this year. This was not the season when we could have become champion. No chance. But we could have had five, six, seven points more, with exactly the same situation we had? Yes, and we should have. That is something I don’t like too much.
“The situation is better than I would have thought a year ago, with the financial situation, but everyone suffers and we are asked about signing players for this or that.
“We will see how the market develops but for sure it will not be an early market.”
