Liverpool: We must prove we were right to keep squad together, says Klopp
With just a couple of new arrivals this summer Liverpool must prove the decision to keep their squad together was the right one, manager Jürgen Klopp said.
Jürgen Klopp hopes that he will be proved right to keep his squad together after a quiet transfer window. The European champions only added three players – teenagers Sepp van den Berg and Harvey Elliott and reserve goalkeeper Adrián – to their squad.
Let's stay together
Klopp, whose team open the Premier League season at home to Norwich City on Friday, hopes his squad will have the depth needed to carry them through six competitions this season. "Big teams stay together for a number of years," the German told UK newspapers. "I really think it makes sense to keep this team together, but we have to prove that. If we had bought new players people might ask, 'After you played last season like this you send some of them away?'"
While they won the Champions League, Liverpool fell just short domestically, their haul of 97 points one short of Manchester City. Klopp believes the Premier League giants must avoid making drastic changes every season, pointing to previous sides who have dominated.
No tinkering
"The big teams of the past – and I don't say we are a big team now, that will be decided in a couple of years – they stay together for a number of years. They do not need a lot of changes," he added. "I am not comparing us with Barcelona of five, six or seven years ago but they stayed together. A new player came in and struggled and so it was the same players who played again. Man United had the class of '92. How long did they stay together? They changed a few after [Eric] Cantona got older and brought in Van the Man [Ruud van Nistelrooy] or whoever. You do not change completely. We are a good team together in a very difficult league with a lot of competitors desperate to get the position we are in. Nobody knows how it will look exactly but Sunday [the Community Shield defeat to Manchester City] showed we will be fine and the rest is what we make of it."