Jürgen Klopp talks on transfers, Liverpool's support in Asia and Darwin Nunez arrival

Jürgen Klopp, the Reds boss, was questioned by journalists at Singapore National Stadium ahead of the latest summer test against Crystal Palace on Friday. During the briefing, Klopp offered some detail on what Liverpool are hoping to gain from a preparation perspective from their Asia tour, as well as whether they are likely to add any further players to their squad before the close of the transfer window.

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He saids: “These trips are really a wonderful, cool thing. The only problem is you have to fly 14 or 15 hours and you train at completely different times. The humidity is not exactly what we are used to. So, it is good and not so good, but the best thing about it is we come closer to our fanbase. Our fanbase here in Asia, we know how big it is and we know how how important it is to come here and we love doing it. From a training point of view, and first and foremost I am a coach, it is not my favourite thing to do because if we can go to Austria for two weeks and train twice a day, that would be better. Here we have appearances and stuff like this; it’s very important, but a pre-season for us, for a coach, is to create situations which we hopefully don't face during the year. Like tougher situations, we train in the middle of the night pretty much when nobody is not ready, you train in extreme heat and all of these kind of things. We will not face that in England but it helps us anyway”.

“From a sports point of view, it is really helpful as well. But the most important thing is to come here and let the people see us, not only on television but live as well. We have today here 12,000 people for the open training session... that’s absolutely impressive! It’s really great. The only problem we have, sometimes the people probably think he could sign their shirt and that’s true, I could, the problem are the 500 people around and I don’t have time for 500 people. We try to do it as often and as much as possible, but we cannot satisfy everybody’s wishes. That’s the problem a little bit but I hope the people are happy anyway”.

The transfer market has changed during his career

“A lot, obviously a lot. These kind of things happen. The numbers [about Darwin Nunez] you are telling are not right, but it’s not a problem – I know which kind of number is going around in the world out there. When you want to sign a striker as exciting as Darwin is, that’s the market and you have to pay the price. As I said, it’s not the price you mentioned and not the prices going around, but it’s no problem. I said so many things in my life and life caught me then later and showed me that my imagination was obviously not clear enough for how quickly life can change. That’s how it is. After that, we bought a centre-half for quite a decent fee, we bought a goalie for quite a decent fee. Our situation is always the same, we try to level it somehow, the things we invest in the boys and in the players we sell, it’s kind of that it’s not going out of any kind of range and that worked so far, but I know, I heard it immediately. I forgot that I said this but everybody reminded me and then I thought, ‘Oh, OK, yeah…’ I’ve said worse things in my life, to be honest, but that’s one of them.

More transfers?

“How I said, if nobody wants to leave – and no player came to me with that request yet and I don’t expect it really, to be honest – there is no need for a new midfielder. We cannot just add on midfielders. We respect the contracts with our boys as well, that means as long as we signed them they get all our support – in training, between the sessions, during the games and between the games. That is the situation we have; really, you can count our midfielders. And, for me, Harvey Elliott is a new signing as well, after last season how he started. He is very young, came back brilliant, then had a little low, that is completely normal after being that long out. So, really excited about seeing him”.

Is any pressure on Darwin Nunez?

“I am not worried at all. The general judgement is 0.0 per cent interesting. And it will be like this, and we all know it’s a joke or a game for some people to pick out some situations where a player is not doing well. The only really important thing first and foremost is how I judge the situation for the player. I couldn’t be more calm about it. I am completely convinced about his potential. And actually what our people think, the Liverpool supporters in the whole world. They should know now after a while that new players need time and get time, and we should be the first – all Liverpool supporters on this planet – who just delete the fee we paid. Just delete it, it’s not important”.

“He’s now a boy from us and now we do absolutely everything to not only see the things we saw from him at Benfica; no, from there we go. This is the basis. And again, it is my responsibility to help Darwin that he can fulfil his full potential. And I am in it. I am in that responsibility. I’m completely calm. Really, with half a football brain you don’t doubt the potential of Darwin Nunez and now we have to help him that he can fulfil that as quick as possible. That’s all”. 

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