Jurgen Klopp went into rebuilding mode in the summer after some high profile exits from his team.
Jordan Henderson and Fabinho both left the club to join the lucrative Saudi Pro League. The Liverpool manager was active in the market looking for replacements for his midfield duo.
Liverpool are set to face Chelsea in the Premier League. This is the first time the two teams have faced off since Klopp made a casual remark on the summer transfer fight between the two teams, in which Chelsea convinced Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia to snub Anfield and join Stamford Bridge.
Liverpool were targeting moves for Jude Bellingham, Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia but failed to sign all of them. Instead, Klopp managed to sign Wataru Endo, Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai.
Klopp recently admitted that Liverpool were fortunate with how the transfer window tranpsired for them after seeing Chelsea’s struggles in the first half of the season.
“It was this night, I come in the stadium, the kids are playing and crowd is cheering – I forgot for 10 or 15 minutes I am a public person,” says Klopp.
“So I did an interview and then thought ‘oh no, that will create a lot of headlines!’.
“We were interested in (Jude) Bellingham, then realised it would not happen as we’d have no money for anything else. Then all of a sudden the whole market for number sixes went up. We had our situation with two sixes left the club. The market heated up.
“Then we thought maybe we could do Caicedo. We’d already done (Alexis) Mac Allister before. So we went in, but he had an emotional agreement already with Chelsea and Pochettino. All fine, so that’s it. Then Lavia had his own reasons, and we were there.
“Then we found our top solution. That’s what I meant (when I said) ‘we are lucky’. We found Wataru. All the time in our mind we had still Stefan (Bajcetic). It was not clear at that moment he was that badly injured that he could not feature at all. We already in our mind that Macca could play the position as well.
“Then we started all the other things. Dom (Szoboszlai) was always on my radar. If one of the £100m (deals) would have worked, there’s no chance to do another (transfer). So that door was open. That’s how it went. That’s what I meant when I said we were so lucky. A few things were decided without us. Everything we wanted to do in the ‘if not’ scenario worked out, and we were really happy.”
Mac Allister is anticipated to play against Chelsea this evening after missing the FA Cup fourth round victory over Norwich City on Sunday due to a slight injury, while Endo is still on international duty with Japan at the Asia Cup.
