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In 2016, when Liverpool's transfer record still stood at the £35m paid for Andy Carroll more than five years earlier, Jurgen Klopp screwed his nose up at Manchester United's deal to return Paul Pogba to Old Trafford.

The transaction, which was nauseatingly accompanied by the hashtag-prefixed 'Pogback' on social media, was a world record at the time, with United seemingly desperate to tub-thump the fact that a player who left them as a free agent four years earlier was back at the club at a cost of £89m.

Klopp, when it was put to him shortly after, offered a response that suggested he was bewildered about how football was advancing in an era increasingly bewitched by the power of 'the transfer'.



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"If you bring one player in for £100m and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney," Klopp said.

It's unclear, three years on, how much the Reds have actually paid for the Uruguay international.

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The criticism of Klopp, at the time at least, ignored the yawning six-year gap between United's world-record deal for Pogba from Juventus and the fact that by 2022, the most expensive transfer in football history stood at a frankly grotesque £200m, which took Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona.

And in the nine years between present day and the early September completion of Poga's move from Juve, the former France international, who has recently signed for AS Monaco, has seen himself slip to 12th in the list of the most expensive footballers.

Football, clearly, has become more used to this sort of exorbitant spending and while Klopp has not been proven to be hypocritical by a comment he made nearly a decade ago, the former Liverpool boss - who now holds the position of global head of soccer at Red Bull - is realistic to have at least softened his stance.

Asked by Welt am Sonntag about his former club's record deal to snare Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen this summer for £116m, Klopp admitted he still views it as "an insane sum" but says such fees are now increasingly par for the course at superclubs, whose annual revenues sit at anywhere between £600m and £900m, according to the latest Deloitte Money League figures.

"There's no question about it, it's an insane sum, and one that a player at Liverpool isn't aware of if things don't go well for two or three games," Klopp said.

I know I once said that I'm out if we pay 100m euros for a player.

Not everyone might like that.

"In English football, what sometimes happens in the transfer market has no impact on people's emotions or their sense of belonging, of being part of the bigger picture.

And it's also true that a transfer like this doesn't come along every day."

Wirtz's eye-watering arrival has been seen as a departure from the self-sustainable model that is imposed on the club by owners Fenway Sports Group, who have, rightly or wrongly, been viewed by certain sections of the Reds' fanbase as some of the most frugal and risk-averse in the top flight.

However, the 22-year-old is instead being seen internally as the sort of player who can have a transformational impact at Anfield in the same way of £65m Alisson Becker and £75m Virgil van Dijk, who were the most expensive goalkeeper and defender of all time when they joined in 2018.

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Contrary to that viewpoint, Liverpool chairman Tom Werner told the ECHO last week: "We (FSG) do not meddle in those kinds of decisions.

We have full confidence that Richard Hughes (sporting director) and Arne are being extremely careful and that if they bless something or recommend something then we are going to support."

So while the German coach may find himself the subject of brickbats from those simply out to lambast a massively successful former Liverpool manager without taking a closer look at the actual details of the situation, that FSG have green lit a historic spend this transfer before the end of June without Klopp on board, means it is increasingly evident that the ex-Reds boss was entirely true to his word throughout.


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