Jurgen Klopp has offered an insight into how Liverpool's famous transfer committee go about selecting and buying their targets.
Since the boss' arrival at Anfield in 2015, Liverpool's recruitment has been widely praised for its efficiency and accuracy, with key signings like Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and, most recently, Luis Diaz all having immediate impacts.
There aren't many other top clubs in world football who can boast the same success rate in the transfer market as Liverpool, and Klopp put that down to the collaborative effort of the Anfield transfer committee.
“From the first press conference, you asked about the transfer committee. I really thought ‘What’s the problem with the transfer committee?’,” he said. “I just had to understand the word because for me it is always a transfer committee, it’s not the official name for it but we just sit a few smart people together and talk and say ‘Can we do it or not do it?’.
“One says ‘the money is too much’, the other says other information about his character, another says ‘Forget all this, I want him because he is so good’.
“That is what I understand was the transfer committee. Yes, we have to be more economical because we don’t have endless resources (but) the players wanted we didn’t always get for different reasons.
“Sometimes money was the reason but then we thought ‘No, we don’t want to do it’, and not ‘we cannot do it’. The main thing is you think: Will the player fit? Will the player help us? Will he help us to make the next step?
“It doesn’t always work out but sometimes it does and then the player can have an impact and that is what we try to do and will still.”
Listen now to 90min's brand new podcast, Talking Transfers, with Scott Saunders & Graeme Bailey. Toby Cudworth joins the show again this week to discuss how Erik ten Hag's appointment may affect Man Utd's pursuit of Paul Mitchell. There is also chat on the futures of Jesse Lingard & David de Gea and a look at what Newcastle are planning this summer.
Once Liverpool eventually settle on their preferred target, Klopp praised the club's ability to get deals done quickly.
“I cannot remember that we struggled to get players in that we wanted to get in,” he continued. “Phil [Coutinho] was the last one (Liverpool lost against their wishes) probably but that always can happen.
“I know from outside it is always ‘Sign him, sign him, sign him’ but we were always there slightly different, we tried it a different way signing players obviously.
“I can’t remember the last time we struggled talking to a player: that doesn’t mean they all come but it wasn’t that we were not sexy enough or shiny enough.”
Source : 90min