Jurgen Klopp breaks silence on Liverpool breaking transfer record to sign Wirtz
Jurgen Klopp has defended Liverpool's decision to break the British transfer record to sign Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen.
The Premier League champions completed the £100million deal earmier this month and the fee for the22-year-old Germany international could potentially become a British record.
There are £16m of add-ons included, which would surpass the existing mark of £115m which Chelsea paid for Moises Caicedo in 2023.
It is understood Liverpool will be happy to pay these 'aspirational bonuses' as it will mean they have enjoyed considerable success at elite level.
Wirtz has signed a five-year contract and the capture of one of Europe's most highly-rated talents is seen as a significant coup for the club having initially faced competition from Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
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Leverkusen had valued Wirtz at £126m but a compromise was reached last week, although the up-front fee easily outstrips the £85m deal Liverpool agreed with Benfica in 2022 for Darwin Nunez, who is expected to leave this summer.
During his own Anfield reign, Klopp infamously and regularly, cast envious glances at the likes of City and Manchester United and cried foul over their spending power.
The former Reds' boss, however, believes his old club are simply moving with the times and is delighted to see them flexing their financial muscle in the transfer market.
'We all agree that we are talking about a great player here, Klopp told Welt. 'I know that I once said that I'm out if we pay £100m for a player. But the world is changing. That's just the way the market is.
'I don't know for which position Arne has planned for Florian exactly. He is an outstanding player who can give something big to any club.
'Whether he will make the reigning English champions even better, however, remains to be seen.'
Liverpool, meanwhile, continued their summer spree earlier this week with the addition of Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth.
The 21-year-old is the club's third arrival this summer, following Jeremie Frimpong and Wirtz.
And with Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili joining next month in a deal done 12 months ago there will be more than £200million of new talent present when pre-season training starts in a fortnight.
Kerkez, who links up with fellow Hungary international Dominik Szoboszlai at Anfield, is viewed as the long-term successor to 31-year-old Andy Robertson, who is a target for Atletico Madrid.
It is understood the club have no intention of forcing out the Scotland international, who started in 29 of his 33 Premier League appearances last season but is in the final year of his contract.
Liverpool new boy Kerkez said: 'I'm really happy. It's a real honour for me, a privilege to come to play for one of the biggest clubs in the world, (the) biggest club in England. I'm just really, really happy and excited.
'After this, I'll go home and in my hometown enjoy a few days, and then I can't really wait to come back and put the training kit on and start to train and prepare for the season.'
MORE: Cristhian Mosquera could reject Arsenal and stay at Valencia on one condition
MORE: Chelsea star could push for transfer after Arsenal and PSG interest
MORE: Benjamin Sesko asking price changes again after Arsenal transfer concerns
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Times
29 minutes ago
- Times
In buyers' market art is in the sale, just look at Brighton (not United)
The key to poker is understanding the value of what is in your hand. In the winter transfer window of 2023, when Chelsea offered £55million for Moisés Caicedo, Brighton & Hove Albion said 'no'. They said the same again when Arsenal followed with a £60million bid, and still no when they raised it to £70million. From the outside, there was consternation. Danny Murphy told talkSPORT Brighton's stance was 'ridiculous' and 'for £70million I would have driven Caicedo there'. But when the summer window opened and Chelsea returned with offers of £60million, then £70million and then £80million, Brighton's answers remained emphatic: no, no, and no again. It was another no when Manchester United entered the running and no when Chelsea suddenly raised the ante and went all the way to the £100million mark. At last, when Liverpool mooted £111million, Brighton accepted a bid — and yet still there were cards to play. Chelsea returned to the table with £115million and finally, in August 2023, Caicedo was on his way. Though not before Brighton, who had paid only £4million for the Ecuadorian midfielder 18 months previously, managed to insert a sell-on clause, guaranteeing a healthy slice of any transfer fee Chelsea get for Caicedo in future, into the deal. Brighton's owner, Tony Bloom, was known as 'The Lizard' during his professional poker career and there may be no one better in the game for the cold-blooded execution of player sales. There are a thousand books and courses on the art of selling but it is the most undervalued, unperfected element in English clubs' transfer operations; the overlooked secret of player trading. Bloom and Brighton are outliers. According to a senior figure in the recruitment department of a top Premier League club: 'Everyone invests loads and loads of money on scouting, talent ID, data, coaching, blah, blah, but very little on the sales side of things. There is no strategy. What's the plan when clubs want to sell a player? Sit there saying, 'I hope someone comes in for him.' ' The situation is made all the more curious by the fact that in this age of Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) and inflated fees — which must be funded somehow — an ability to raise money through sales has never been more important. So many Premier League clubs, in this window, find their plans dependent on how effectively, and lucratively, they can offload players. United are the most obvious example, but Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa and many others need to offload players. It doesn't excite fans, who focus on the shiny new stars arriving, but getting rid of the right ones, at the right prices, can be as crucial as signing well. United, in straightened times and in the straitjacket of PSR, are trying to fund a squad makeover to fit Ruben Amorim's style. Having spent £62.5million on Matheus Cunha and had two bids — the latest for £55million plus £7.5million in add-ons — rejected for Bryan Mbeumo, they want a striker, wingback, midfielder and goalkeeper but whether they recruit in all those positions will depend on what funds they can realise from offloading their unwanted players, such as Alejandro Garnacho, Marcus Rashford, Antony and Jadon Sancho. All bar Garnacho are on wages that severely restrict which clubs can afford them, and United's new director of football, Jason Wilcox, has the added headache of Amorim and/or those players themselves making clear it is time for them to leave United, taking away any chance of hard-balling would-be buyers. Arsenal are close to announcing deals for Martín Zubimendi, Christian Norgaard and Kepa Arrizabalaga and are working on the signing of Cristhian Mosquera from Valencia — all for sensible fees. Yet Mikel Arteta's main requirement is a new striker, and with targets Viktor Gyokeres and Benjamin Sesko priced in excess of £60million, the club are looking to raise about £50million from sales. They would listen to offers for Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jakub Kiwior, Reiss Nelson and perhaps even Gabriel Martinelli. With their income slashed by failing to reach the Champions League, Aston Villa are looking to reduce player costs by £80million this summer. They have sold cleverly in the past — getting €188million (£160million) for Jhon Durán, Moussa Diaby and Douglas Luiz last season — and will have to sell smartly again, ideally starting before the PSR 2024-25 accounting deadline of midnight Monday. Pep Guardiola has threatened to quit if City don't reduce the size of his squad, and Jack Grealish is the most eye-catching item in their shop window. Guardiola may benefit from having a new sporting director, Hugo Viana, whose experience (gained at Sporting Lisbon) is within a player-trading model as opposed to the departing Txiki Begiristain, one of the best sporting directors of all time but who has only worked at dominant clubs in periods where there was little emphasis on sales. After the £40million signing of Milos Kerkez pushed their summer spending beyond £200million, Liverpool are not finished recruiting but need to balance their expenditure with more sales on top of the £24million already received for Caoimhin Kelleher, Nat Phillips and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Jarell Quansah is expected to join Bayer Leverkusen for £35million after the European Under-21 Championship and Tyler Morton, also excelling at the tournament, is another asset they will seek to realise. Talks are continuing with Napoli over a deal to sell Darwin Núñez, while Federico Chiesa, who interests several Serie A clubs, is also likely to be sold. Ideally, with Kerkez aboard, the Liverpool would raise funds by disposing of a left back. Andrew Robertson is considering interest from Atletico Madrid but may stay for the final year of his contract, though, and Kostas Tsimikas is happy in a back-up role. A 'Greek Scouser' who describes Liverpool as 'the Broadway of football' may be hard to shift. The importance of sales was laid out at the end of the previous summer transfer window by the online football finance expert Swiss Ramble. From 2022-24, Brighton's gross spending on players (£411million) exceeded that of Liverpool, Newcastle United, Villa and — by a significant margin — the outlays of supposed peer clubs such as Brentford, Fulham and Crystal Palace. But their net spend? It was just £20million. They had traded their squad upwards — readying it to finish a club-record eighth in 2024-25 — for less than £7million per season, thanks to sales. The analysis showed Chelsea and City to have been by far the period's biggest sellers. The massive recruitment programmes undergone by both would have been impossible without recouping through player disposals. The pressure on Arsenal, United, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle was also clear in the figures. Those clubs' relatively low sales left them with big net spends. Arsenal's gross outlay on players was only £50million more than City's over a five-year period, but their net spend was £480million more. The problems that stores up perhaps explain why City can now spend with abandon to help Guardiola rebuild while Arteta is still waiting for his striker. Everton were the only club to make a transfer profit from 2020-24, showing how selling was fundamental to the club's very survival during the stricken final years of Farhad Moshiri's ownership. But selling is not just about how much you make, it's about which goods you are willing to part with, and though City raised £499million by offloading players from 2022-24 it was a period where they parted with talents including Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Liam Delap, James Trafford and Julián Alvarez. None look like wise disposals now. There are different ways of measuring how 'good' a player sale is. One is to compare at the price achieved to market value and, using Transfermarkt's calculations, the best business of last summer included Newcastle realising £22.2million more than market value when selling Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth achieving £20.8million more when selling Dominic Solanke to Tottenham and Wolves extracting £13.2million more for Max Kilman than the market said he was worth. However, another way is to look at the value of the player sold a year down the line. The blossoming of Anderson at Forest suggests Newcastle actually undervalued him. On the other hand the Kilman deal looks even better from Wolves' point of view — 12 months on he is now worth £19.2million less than West Ham paid for him. City selling Alvarez to Atletico Madrid for £64million seems a bad deal by both measures. The price was £13million below the Argentina forward's market value at the time and now it is £21.4million below his market value — albeit add-ons included in the deal may allow City to recoup up to £17million. United fare dreadfully in the analysis. They have made 14 significant sales in the past three seasons, 11 of whom now valued higher than the fees received for them, with Scott McTominay, Anthony Elanga and Álvaro Carreras worth a combined £63million more. To value players, Brighton use the unique information provided by Jamestown Analytics, an offshoot of Bloom's betting data company, Starlizard. They stick to those valuations and ignore distractions: back in January 2023, Caicedo agitated to go, even posting a plea to leave on Instagram. Brighton did not go to war with their asset but calmly asked him to stay away from training until the transfer window closed and then extended his contract, to further increase his value. Only selling when a replacement has been signed or lined up is also the Brighton way. Marc Cucurella was replaced by Pervis Estupiñán, Robert Sánchez by Bart Verbruggen and Leandro Trossard by João Pedro. Caicedo himself was the replacement for Yves Bissouma and on the same day he signed for Chelsea, Brighton entered talks with Lille for his replacement, Carlos Baleba. Now Baleba, 21, is projected to be a future £100million sale but a club who made gentle inquiries came away with the impression that Brighton are unlikely to let him go until next season, because his replacement has not been identified yet. Liverpool's headaches are eased by having Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes to oversee trading. Hughes sold well at Bournemouth and squeezing €10million from Real Madrid for the last month of Alexander-Arnold's contract was remarkable even by Edwards's standards. During the building phase of the modern Liverpool, as sporting director Edwards raised £396million from sales from 2014-17 — enabling the recruitment of Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino, Joël Matip, Gini Wijnaldum, Adam Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Joe Gomez and Robertson on a pretty much obscene £58million net spend. 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The Sun
30 minutes ago
- The Sun
Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr ‘plot £85million move for Liverpool's Luis Diaz' after handing Man Utd legend new deal
Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr are prepared to pay Liverpool £85million for Luis Diaz, reports claim. The Saudi Pro League side are in hunt for fresh talent after handing Ronaldo the most lucrative contract in sporting history. 5 5 With two years remaining on his Anfield contract, Diaz opened the door to a surprise exit after confessing he was in talks with other clubs. The 28-year-old winger played a key role in Liverpool's title-winning season, contributing 17 goals and eight assists in 50 appearances across all competitions. Liverpool haven't offered Diaz a contract extension and he could be marginalised after the £116million arrival of club-record signing Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen. According to a report by Okaz, Al-Nassr have set their sights on Diaz and are open to offering a staggering £85million. Journalist Ben Jacobs confirmed Al-Nassr's interest and hinted that while Liverpool currently have no intention of selling, such a huge bid could tempt the club's hierarchy to reconsider. The report did add that "the final decision is left to the player himself", with the Colombia international also strongly linked with cash-strapped Barcelona. Al-Nassr are planning a mega recruitment drive after missing out on Asian Champions League football next season and failing to win a title since Ronaldo, 40, joined from Manchester United in 2021. SunSport previously reported that Liverpool valued Diaz at £70million, so the club might be drawn in by banking £15million more. 5 CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS But SPORT have claimed that Barca are "convinced" that they will finally land Diaz when the second-half of the summer window opens after the Club World Cup. His girlfriend, Gera Ponce, posted an emotional Instagram message which some fans believed was a farewell. Man Utd open to Rasmus Hojlund offers LATEST with Italian giants keen | Transfers Exposed She wrote under a slideshow of photos showcasing Diaz's triumphs in the 2024-25 season: "From the first day we arrived, we felt first hand what it means to be a part of this club. "We knew the slogan was 'You'll Never Walk Alone', but to hear them sing it with so much passion, support us every moment and show such unconditional love... confirmed to us that here you never walk alone. "This fanbase doesn't just support, it feels. And what you have made my boyfriend and our entire family feel is something we carry in our souls." But Liverpool boss Arne Slot is eager to keep Diaz for next season's title defence after his ever-growing £216MILLION reboot, with Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez joining over the last month.
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