Liverpool’s transfer business has been tip top over recent years, with so many more hits than misses.
Signing new players can always be a gamble no matter which club you are, but the Reds have often identified exactly the right additions at ideal times.
Under Jurgen Klopp, their success rate was bordering on extraordinary.
The likes of Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk were seen as overpays by some, for example, but all turned out to be super players for Liverpool.
Klopp and the recruitment team at Anfield were also adept at uncovering cheaper gems such as Andy Robertson or Joel Matip.
Perhaps the former Liverpool manager had learnt some lessons from his time at Borussia Dortmund. Because as he has now revealed, Klopp turned down the chance to sign two Premier League legends for the German side.
Jurgen Klopp missed Son Heung-Min chance
Rewind to Klopp’s time at Dortmund, and he was often having to deal with the prospect of losing his best players.
Mario Gotze, Robert Lewandowski and Shinji Kagawa were just some of those to depart for richer teams.
Klopp often managed without them, bringing in players who would go on to fill the gaps. But as he explained in a new video released by GOAL South Africa, he passed up the chance to sign Mane and then Son Heung-Min for Dortmund.
“There’s a Dortmund supporter here so I have to apologise to him because I didn’t sign Sadio Mane for Dortmund!” laughed the 57-year-old.
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“I could say I was young and naïve but I was not that young and not that naïve. I realised when we took him to Liverpool ‘oh my God that’s a lot of money for a guy I could have had years ago for much less.’
“And I could’ve signed Son from Tottenham – from Hamburg at that time,” Klopp added. “I don’t even remember why [he chose not to], but I just faced him in the Premier League and thought ‘my God you dumb —-!’ It’s crazy.”
Klopp reveals failed Kevin De Bruyne move
Klopp absolutely loved Son as a player. He spoke several times about how he wished he’d signed the South Korean. Forget Dortmund, Son would have been a perfect player for Liverpool.
Another who would have thrived at Anfield would have been Man City legend Kevin De Bruyne. Liverpool never had the chance to sign De Bruyne, despite him being a boyhood Reds supporter.
But according to Klopp, he very nearly signed the Belgian for Dortmund during his time in the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg.
“There were a lot of players that close that we could get them and then somebody made the decision and then we don’t get them,” he said.
“Some of them would have made a difference definitely. Again to the Dortmund supporter, Kevin De Bruyne was that close, then he smashed us in the cup final with Wolfsburg, so that was a double minus, let me say it like that.”
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