Sitting in third place with only two matches left in the season, Liverpool go into the meeting with West Ham United on Sunday knowing that anything but a win just won’t do — and, of course, that their player recruitment plans for the summer could be in serious jeopardy if they won’t secure their spot in Europe’s elite club competition.
“The players we are talking to, because they are all good players, I know they have offers from other clubs [and] maybe they play Champions League or not, or whatever,” confirmed Reds boss Jurgen Klopp, being frank about the caliber of player the club is trying to draft in when the transfer window reopens. “It’s important – how it is always important – for the club,” conceded the German. “Everybody knows it’s a lot of money in the Champions League, it’s not only the sports challenge, even though it’s really exciting, it’s also the money you can earn and as a football club we have to do this too.”
Klopp has already said that he plans to make changes to his squad this summer and it’s believed that the owners will back him with the money he needs to make it happen with the biggest transfer kitty in the history of the club. While there were concerns that he may have to sell to buy with Reds talisman Philippe Coutinho rumoured to following the same route out the door as Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling, the manager has stressed that they won’t be parting ways with players he wants to keep — but he knows as well as everyone else that if you want to keep the best and recruit the same, you have to be playing in the Champions League.
“We all know about the situation and the players want to qualify, want to play in this fantastic tournament, as I want,” explained the Liverpool boss. “The transfers we have to do around this, all the talks we had are very positive so far, but that doesn’t mean that all will work out,” said Klopp, being completely realistic. “We have to give everything and then we have to see if we could convince the player or not or if there’s anybody else who’s nicer or whatever. That’s the situation but it’s not new, it’s always like this and so I’m not surprised about it.”
