Jurgen Klopp admits he ‘was wrong’ to say he had no interest in £100m transfers as Liverpool near Moises Caicedo deal

Jurgen Klopp admits he was wrong to say he had no interest in making £100million ($127m) signings as Liverpool attempt to secure the arrival of Moises Caicedo for a British record transfer.

Liverpool must now attempt to convince the Ecuador international to join the club after they out-bid Chelsea to agree a fee of £111m with Brighton & Hove Albion.

Back in the summer of 2016, Klopp said spending that much on one player was the wrong approach as he vowed: “The day that this is football, I’m not in a job anymore.”

However, given the changing landscape of the transfer market and the financial might of their rivals, Klopp admits he has changed his opinion in order to try to keep pace.

“Everything changed. Do I like it? No. Did I realise I was wrong? Yes, definitely. That’s the way it goes. It’s not great,” Klopp said.

“It won’t go the other way around again. Saudi Arabia definitely won’t help with that. I’m not blaming anyone, but it just won’t help with it. Another market with a lot of money.

“In the end, we as a club just have to try to make sure that with our resources we get the best possible team together. We all know in football 50 per cent will like it and 50 per cent will say ‘but I would have done this or that’.

“Believe me, we really try everything to bring together the best squad for us. That’s the idea. We are not in dreamland. It’s not that we can just point at players and bring them in. There’s a lot of work to do these things. Sometimes one door closes and another opens up.

“If people want to throw my quotes at me from five or six years ago, absolutely no problem. That day it was what I thought. Now I realise I was wrong. It’s easy to admit that.”

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Klopp confirmed that Liverpool had agreed a fee with Brighton but wouldn’t be drawn on whether Caicedo was undergoing a medical on Friday.

The club recently banked around £52million from the sales of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho to Saudi Arabia and that allowed them to move for Caicedo when Chelsea’s pursuit stalled. Liverpool had previously been thwarted in their attempts to agree a deal with Southampton for Romeo Lavia.

“What changed? We aren’t a club with endless resources but a couple of things we didn’t expect happened in the summer with Hendo and Fab. The club really stretched it to be honest,” Klopp added.

“The German saying is ‘don’t praise the evening before the day’. Let’s see what happens and we’ll go from there.”

(Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)