Klopp is expected to overhaul his squad during the summer transfer window. The German’s midfield needs new additions, with the fitness and poor form of key players culminating in a below-par campaign for the Merseyside outfit.
Some fans fear that the likely absence of Champions League football could impact their ability to sign top-class players. However, Klopp has previously insisted on only acquiring new signings who have a desire to play for Liverpool rather than simply wanting to play in the Champions League.
Speaking ahead of his first summer transfer window in 2016, with Liverpool on the cusp of failing to finish in the top four, Klopp said: “Obviously, it’s not 100 per-cent, but maybe 80 per-cent we are not in the Champions League next year. So if I would speak to a player now and he would tell me: ‘if you were playing in the Champions League next year I would be really interested’, I would put the phone down from my side. I am not interested.
“I always tell players if when you are 35 or 36 and look back on your career and you think about the one year when you didn’t play Champions League then you are really a poor boy. There are so many things you can do and reach if you go together with the team.
“You can qualify for the Champions League, play Champions League, maybe win it or whatever. It is a much more satisfying thing than all the rest. That is what I would say. It is pushing the train, not jumping on the running train. That is what we need here.
“If somebody says: ‘no, you don’t play Champions League next year’ then goodbye and thank you, have fun next year wherever you will be.
“We will find players or we have players already that will go our way. That is not my way, that is the normal way for a club not playing in the Champions League.”
Seven years on, Klopp’s position is unchanged. The 55-year-old is only interested in signing players who have an ambition to play for Liverpool.
Speaking earlier this month, he said: “When I talk to a player – if I’m allowed to talk to a player, which it barely the case, but in the moment when you are – you realise then it’s already clarified because we cannot tell anybody in the moment that we are definitely in the Champions League. If he’s talking to us, it’s probably already clear that he knows about that situation.
“If you join club, it’s that you want to reach something together with the club. We have to fight to be part of the Champions League, we have to fight for trophies and if you want to be part of that, you are more than welcome.
“There is one thing we cannot guarantee this year and it is Champions League football, all the rest is the same as it was before. We are still Liverpool and we are really attractive for a lot of players, we should not forget that. That’s why I’m not concerned about that fact.
“Everything is of course more difficult without Champions League, especially in long term, and we have to not do these things more often. But apart from that, it’s okay the situation we are in from a talking point of view and convincing point of view.”
Liverpool have been linked with a move for Brighton’s World Cup-winning star Alexis Mac Allister. The Reds will wave goodbye to Roberto Firmino, James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita when their contracts expire in the summer.
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