Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has reassured Christian Benteke of his future at the club by admitting he’s a fan, and even goes on to confess that he almost signed him while he was in charge at Borussia Dortmund, the Daily Mirror reports.
Benteke arrived at Anfield over the summer in a £32m deal from Aston Villa, but despite being a regular under former boss Brendan Rodgers, he has found himself frozen out of the side recently, being left on the bench for the clash with West Ham and the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final.
But even though the club have undergone somewhat of a striker crisis recently, Klopp has confirmed that the Belgian international is still in his plans, and even goes on to stress that he rates him so highly that he even met the striker at a German airport to convince him to sign for Dortmund from Villa back in 2013.
“I met him, plus his agent, at Dusseldorf airport,” he said.
“We saw a lot of games he played in, his technical skills, his heading and his finishing skills. From all those things he is a complete striker but you have to work for it.
“He hasn’t finished his development, and we as a team haven’t.
“He needs to stay cool – of course he has a future here.
“We don’t score enough goals, so I understand why you ask about the striker – in your mind the only striker we have. He is on the bench and that seems to be strange, but not in my opinion.
“We have to think about how we create chances. First of all we cannot hope that we can get the ball into the box and then maybe Christian will finish it.
“He always has the possibility to play, but you have to look how it fits. For example we had games with Roberto (Firmino) and Christian at No.10 and No.9. It did not work but that does not mean we can never play like this.
“To have Christian on the bench is a quality sign.”
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