Jurgen Klopp has vowed to pay any player to his favorite club if he wants to leave Liverpool in the wake of their failure to qualify for the Champions League.
The Anfield boss doesn’t believe dropping out of Europe’s elite after six seasons will result in a superstar name clamoring for action this summer.
Mohamed Salah, his top scorer with 30 goals, declared that he was “totally shattered” after Manchester United’s victory over Chelsea on Thursday that clinched Liverpool to fifth place. “There is no excuse” for failing to meet the “minimum,” Masri said.
However, Klopp insists Salah is as committed as anyone to getting things right next season.
“Mo would love to be here,” he said.
“It was part of apologizing for what we did, not apologizing for what other people did. No, it’s all right.
“If a player came to me and said: ‘We didn’t qualify for the Champions League, now I have to leave’ then I would drive him to the other club. I would take the key and ask: ‘Where do you want to go?’ I will drive you. This would be something I would never understand.
“I would never say: ‘I need to work in the Champions League, so I’ll go now’. I’m responsible for this ‘mess’ or whatever. You can’t go in these moments.
“No one asked me (about leaving). They asked if they could take a day longer on vacation or something, but no one asked if they had to come back after their vacation. It wasn’t in our conversations.”
Liverpool will compete in the Europa League next season for the first time since Klopp took charge during the 2015-16 season.
After dealing with the term ‘explosive prize money’, Klopp went on to explain why he embraced life in the second-tier competition.
“What’s a booby?! I needed to be top five to learn that word,” he said.
“No, it’s not for me. I understand where you’re coming from. At the level we usually play in, it’s about the Champions League because of the money, because of the opponents and all that.
“It’s not that I follow the group stage matches of the last four years in the Europa League too much because when you’re in the Champions League you have a lot of other things to do but I love European competitions. It’s no different for me.
“I know when you play there is no difference. There will be tough opponents, different countries probably and in the end a huge prize to win. I’m not saying we’ll do it now, but we’ll definitely try.
“People might be thinking at this moment ‘ah, it’s just the Europa League’ but I’m 100 per cent sure the kick-off will come on Thursday night, whoever the opponent is, Anfield will rock. That’s all I need.
“If someone wants to go on all year and think ‘oh but it’s not the Champions League’, I can’t help that person.
“Life is like this, try everything until it’s decided and then just accept it and go from there. If you’re constantly worrying about what you could have done differently — all of these things — they no longer matter and no longer work and if they don’t work, then take them out.”
Klopp has revealed that young midfielder Stefan Bagcetic is on his way back to action in pre-season. His impressive campaign ended prematurely in March with an adductor muscle injury.
“There is progress. At the start of pre-season there will be parts of reintegration, not full training,” Klopp said yesterday, speaking to the doctor.
“He’s completely pain free but we’re talking about a very young player so we have to be careful. Like we have to be very careful with Curtis (Jones). It’s annoying for a player, to train for two days and then two days off so he doesn’t take risks – that could be Is the plan with Stefan.
“Hopefully he comes with us to training camp and then he’s OK for the start of the season. With this kind of injury there’s no real timeline behind that. We’ll have to wait for the evaluations to come in and go from there, but they’re positive. By the end of pre-season, I think he’s He’ll hopefully be in full training for a week or two.”
Liverpool close out the 2022-23 season against Southampton on Sunday.
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