Jürgen Klopp is building a squad at Liverpool but he can only be successful if he keeps his best players.
Liverpool have become a selling club. That is a statement with which it is very difficult to argue. Since 2009, the Reds have sold Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano, Fernando Torres, Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling as well as several other top quality players.
Five of the players Liverpool have sold in the last 7 years have won the Champions League whereas last season Liverpool couldn’t even win the Europa League. The exodus of top talent in recent years has been huge.
While we might not have Torres or Suarez we do have the next best thing, Jürgen Klopp.
“Yes, I think we can do this. It’s one of the targets for the coming years,” he told the Echo.
“There hasn’t been a successful team in world football who change their squad every year. You need to keep your key players. That’s a very important thing.
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“You have to create a situation where you are successful. A situation where everyone feels in a good way and we are strong enough and patient enough to keep them together.
“We say that same squad and consistency creates success.
“But on the other hand if you aren’t successful then people will say you need a complete change – that’s how people are. That doesn’t make much sense.”
“I spoke before this transfer window about not needing to change a lot,” Klopp added.
“We actually didn’t change too much but we have seven new players here. So in fact we changed a lot! Both statements are true.
“We’ve kept all of our key players and gave a few of our big talents the opportunity to play somewhere else because of the education they had at Liverpool.
“We want to be a club in the future for sure whose players don’t want to leave. That’s very important.
“But it will only be possible with success and the atmosphere we create in and around the club.”