Thatās a different point to selling to regenerating the squad though mate no?
If we donāt sell a Salah, Mane or whoever at peak price we wonāt be given funds to replace them when the time comes
So my thinking is that JĆ¼rgen has a different approach to building and sustaining a winner. He sees football as a classic group effort, where the sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts (however that saying goes). He is about players playing their roles expertly (through superior and consistent training) and the intangibles of chemistry, psychology, good environment working together with all the quality play to produce something spectacular.
This invites a recruitment approach quite different than the agent-driven megastar hunt that tends to dominate media coverage and fan interest. Remember when Mino Raiola said Klopp was a piece of sh*t? He was mad that JĆ¼rgen wasn't allowing Balotelli back into the squad, but also because he knows that if JĆ¼rgen's approach catches on, it will significantly cut into the gravy train for people like him. Agents make their money from transfers and that is why you see these galactico types move again and again and again - with a club's supposed ambition being measure on the sheer volume of gold they are willing to shell out to get said players.
That doesn't mean you don't want great players of course, just a certain kind of great player (and no jackasses). And again, these players have to fit into a supercharged team ethos under Klopp's direction. AS I mentioned before, a big part of that is allowing players to see out their entire contracts rather than looking at them as simply pawns in a financial game. I think the overwhelming majority of players we have sold were asking to be moved so they could play a greater role somewhere, while our regular starters have mostly been renewed or allowed to leave on a free. Put yourself in the shoes of a player with a family and that is going to be pretty meaningful and really enhance how you feel about the people you work with.
Look at all the players who at one point were regular starters but were allowed to see out their contract and leave on a free rather than being "cashed in on."
Alberto Moreno, Nathanael Clyne, Daniel Sturridge, Emre Can, Gini Wijnaldum and Adam Lallana. The club could have gotten something for each of these players a year earlier, but chose to let them stay and help them compete for trophies.
Look at the guys we sold, they were nearly all players on the outskirts of the first team, either because they didn't fit Klopp's system (like Benteke) or just didn't manage to crack the starting XI.
Christian Benteke, Danny Ings, Joe Allen, Mama Sakho, Dejan Lovren, Shaqiri, Danny Ward, Jordon Ibe and Simon Mignolet.
You also had promising youngsters like Marko Grujic, Harry Wilson, Rhian Brewster, Ryan Kent and Kijana Hoever.
The outlier to all of this of course if Phil Coutinho, but he is a unique situation in that he had his head turned by the sports marketing/sports agency gravy train and so Liverpool were left with no choice. It doesn't mean that the club buys players simply to sell them. With our top, starting players the pattern has been very much the opposite - we buy them to keep them (at least for as long as they doing the business and helping promote the team's spirit. I bet if you compared our top 15 players re games played the average amount of time they have been with the club is longer than you'll see at other top clubs in England and Europe. Less turnover is a good thing. So we have guys who were here BEFORE JĆ¼rgen arrived like Henderson, Milner, Gomez, Bobby and Divock.
Now you still need money when the time comes to bring new players in, but the funds needed to buy those players comes from a number of sources, not just from players sold. The Nike revenue, the investment from the outside capital group as well as TV and other media revenue, will make a big difference when the time comes to buy - just remember our buys will always be precise strikes in the market, not carpet bombing in the hopes of getting one or two who stick. It's not as sexy (or simple) for some fans and journos to understand, but judging by results, the whole thing can work (and that is allowing for the bigger purchases of Virgil and Ali and the still rather large purchases of Jota, Konate, Thiago, Mo, Sadio, Ox, Gini, Fab and Keita).
Add in some bargain buys like Robbo and Matip with young stars like Trent and hopefully Harvey Elliott and Tyler Morton and you are getting close to a well-rounded squad. It's not that it can't be improved upon, but you have to do it within this process. There's a lot of science to determine how long to sign a player for (however long he is going to be making a difference for us. I fully expect Mo to get a renewal, but it may be that the management decide to let Sadio and Bobby see out their contracts, while lining up their replacements even now.
It's not the way journos and their agent friends and their bung-taking mediocre English managers depict building a winner, but so often the headlines of the big transfer linger longer than the muted detailing of players/teams not living up to expectations despite spending big. The approach of our manager, which has helped refine the approach of the owners, is a much more cultured, thoughtful, and in the end, promising model to build and sustain a winning team at Liverpool in the age of the state-owned football conglomerates we compete for trophies with.
