Klopp a hypocrite after slamming €100m Pogba transfer
Carlo Garganese
- Updated: 23 May 2023 08:46 CDT
- 4 min read
It was not so long ago that Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp vowed never to spend £100 million on a player. He claimed at the time that if he were spending that type of money on a footballer, it was a sport he did not want to be involved in.
His words came in response to Manchester United completing a world record transfer in the summer of 2016 as they captured Paul Pogba from Juventus. It was expected to be a deal that would change the Red Devils' fortunes, and even if those predictions never came to fruition, it was a transfer that certainly riled Klopp.
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What did Klopp say about Pogba?
“The day that spending £100m is football, I'm not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together,” Klopp blasted.
“That is how everybody in football understands it. You always want to have the best, but building the group is necessary to be successful.
“If you bring one player in for £100m and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney.
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“Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players.
“I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money.”
Six years on and Klopp has proved himself to be a hypocrite.
Since 2016 he has broken the world transfer record for a goalkeeper in buying Alisson from Roma for €72.5m and the world transfer record for a defender in signing Virgil van Dijk from Southampton for €84.5m.
Alisson is now the second most expensive goalkeeper in history after being surpassed by Kepa’s €80m move to Chelsea from Athletic Bilbao.
Van Dijk is the second most expensive defender ever after being surpassed by Harry Maguire’s switch to Man Utd from Leicester.
And now Klopp is set to complete the biggest transfer of his and Liverpool’s history by buying Benfica’s Darwin Nunez (pictured below) for a total value of €100m.
Nunez becomes one of only 14 players ever to move for €100m or more.
Klopp's hypcrisy
So will Klopp stand by his word and not be part of this footballing culture of excess spending?
Of course not. He is just as much responsible for the transfer market inflating out of control as anyone else. And he is just as responsible for the Premier League monopolising the world’s best talent and becoming a de facto Super League.
And Klopp also knows that his Liverpool team couldn’t possibly contend with state-owned Manchester City and others unless they opened up their chequebooks.
Would Liverpool have won the 2019 Champions League or 2020 Premier League had they not broken records to bring in the best goalkeeper and best defender in the Premier League? No chance.
Liverpool also made the biggest Premier League signing of January in Luis Diaz for €60m. That’s €160m on two forwards in 2022, already.
Many argue they have paid well over the odds for Nunez. Time will tell on that score. But what isn’t in doubt is that Klopp being portrayed as a man of the people who doesn’t need money to win titles - and opposes football’s excesses – is nonsense.
If it were true, Klopp “wouldn’t be in a job anymore.”
