With a number of high-profile departures from his team, Jurgen Klopp entered rebuilding mode in the summer.
Acording to CaughtOffside, Both Fabinho and Jordan Henderson left the team to join the lucrative Saudi Pro League. The manager of Liverpool was searching the market for a midfield partner to replace his current pair.
Chelsea and Liverpool will play in the Premier League. This is the first meeting between the two teams since Klopp made a lighthearted comment about the summer transfer controversy between the two teams, which saw Chelsea persuade Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia to choose Stamford Bridge over Anfield.
Romeo Lavia, Moises Caicedo, and Jude Bellingham were the players Liverpool wanted to sign, but they were not successful in doing so. Rather, Klopp was able to bring in Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo, Alexis Mac Allister, and Ryan Gravenberch.
Liverpool’s transfer window transpired in a fortunate way, according to Klopp, who recently acknowledged this after witnessing Chelsea’s difficulties during the preseason.
“It was this evening, I enter the stadium, the crowd is applauding and the kids are playing. For ten or fifteen minutes, I forgot I was in public,” says Klopp.
“After conducting an interview, I realized that it would make a lot of headlines.
“We were interested in (Jude) Bellingham, then realised it would not happen as we’d have no money for anything else. Then all of a sudden the whole market for number sixes went up. We had our situation with two sixes left the club. The market heated up.
“Then we thought maybe we could do Caicedo. We’d already done (Alexis) Mac Allister before. So we went in, but he had an emotional agreement already with Chelsea and Pochettino. All fine, so that’s it. Then Lavia had his own reasons, and we were there.
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“Then we found our top solution. That’s what I meant (when I said) ‘we are lucky’. We found Wataru. All the time in our mind we had still Stefan (Bajcetic). It was not clear at that moment he was that badly injured that he could not feature at all. We already in our mind that Macca could play the position as well. “Then we started all the other things. Dom (Szoboszlai) was always on my radar. If one of the £100m (deals) would have worked, there’s no chance to do another (transfer). So that door was open. That’s how it went. That’s what I meant when I said we were so lucky. A few things were decided without us. Everything we wanted to do in the ‘if not’ scenario worked out, and we were really happy.”
While Endo is still with Japan at the Asia Cup on international duty, Mac Allister is expected to play against Chelsea this evening after missing Sunday’s FA Cup fourth round victory over Norwich City due to a minor injury.
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