London (AFP) – Jurgen Klopp admits he is willing to allow some of Liverpool’s fringe players to leave before the end of the August.
Reds boss Klopp splashed out £160 million ($203.8 million) on Naby Keita, Fabinho, Alisson Becker and Xherdan Shaqiri before the Premier League transfer window closed last week.
Those deals mean Liverpool are open to off-loading players likely to be squeezed out of the match-day squad on a regular basis.
Estonia defender Ragnar Klavan is expected to join Cagliari, while Simon Mignolet, Lazar Markovic, Sheyi Ojo, Marko Grujic and Dominic Solanke might all attract interest.
Although English teams can’t buy players until January, they can still sell to European clubs for the rest of August and Klopp says business could be done at Anfield — but only at the right price.
“I said before, in general, that it’s possible players could leave the club and that will happen if it’s good for everyone,” Klopp told reporters on Friday.
“The transfer window closed in England and the whole of the world — the whole of Europe at least — was waiting for that moment and they start now trying, dumping (lower) prices to get good football players.
“That will not happen. We are not in a financial need. No player would leave the club if I would not allow it. First the situation is, ‘How is the offer, how is the need for us?’.
“I really think we could give a few players the opportunity but we have to see how many. I have no number in my mind at the moment.”
Liverpool are regarded as the team most likely to challenge champions Manchester City.
They kicked off their campaign with a 4-0 win against West Ham, but Klopp is not getting carried away.
“People are still not used to enough good football from us, because if we are good we are ‘unbelievably good’. But we didn’t get anything for it so far,” he said.
“We need to stay positive, very good, but stay angry as well. Don’t celebrate the whole week until Monday and then fall hard.”
