Jurgen Klopp admits he must stop Liverpool players following Raheem Sterling's example

Raheem Sterling made his breakthrough at Liverpool before a £49m move to Man City

JURGEN KLOPP has admitted he must change the perception that Liverpool is a mere stepping stone to success as he seeks to stifle Raheem Sterling.

 

Sterling became the latest high-profile player to quit Anfield last summer, moving to Manchester City in an acrimonious £49m transfer because he felt he would further his career at The Etihad.

Liverpool saw Luis Suarez defect the previous summer, and Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano before that, although Sterling being young and English felt as if it added a different dimension to a familiar story.

Klopp endured a similar situation at former club Borussia Dortmund with Mario Goetze and Robert Lewandowski moving to Bayern Munich and he acknowledges ending the trend at Liverpool is crucial to his hopes to oversee a lasting recovery.

“I don’t know anything about Sterling’s story, but I know about similar stories and it is normal,” said Klopp. “The only thing is how you react on this.

 

“This is Mario Goetze’s story with Dortmund. You cannot hold the player when he doesn’t want [to be there]. It doesn’t work. So you have to take the money and do something smart with it.

“Always, the will of the players is very important.

“First of all, we have to try to become a club in the future that nobody wants to leave. Then we have the problems that we have to send some players because we have too much! That is ultimately what we have to do.

“And it’s possible...ok, so the weather in Manchester is not that much better than Liverpool so it is not the biggest advantage.

 

Before joining Barcelona, Luis Suarez enjoying three productive years with Liverpool

“It is a long, long journey. But we have started it and we want to do this. “We don’t have to talk about the past and not with Sterling. He’s a brilliant player, everybody knows this. Now he’s at Manchester City. Now we close the book. “We have other good players, really good players, and that is what we have to think about.”

Klopp’s managerial career has been shaped by his ability to build teams, nurturing youth or buying players with potential for low transfer fees and polishing them into diamonds.

Yet he maintains the notion he is averse to spending £50m on a single player is misplaced.

“I don’t want to buy, but if we want a player and that’s the price, we have to think about it,” said Klopp.

“Yes, it’s better you have players in your own squad that are worth £100m but don’t want to leave, that’s the best thing!

“This is what we try to do for the future. [But] it’s ok when other clubs do this, I have no problem.”

 

The visit to City will provide a more accurate gauge of Liverpool’s progress than perhaps the eye-catching 3-1 win at Stamford Bridge when Chelsea unravelled at the first sign of a setback.

Manuel Pellegrini’s side are less fragile as their position at the summit of the Premier League details and there is a responsibility on Liverpool to recover from the defeat to Crystal Palace prior to the international break.

Despite the disparity in resources between the two clubs, Klopp - mindful of how Dortmund usurped Bayern for a spell - expects Liverpool to compete.

“On the pitch, yes of course we could compete,” said Klopp, who drew and then beat City in the Champions League in 2012.

“That’s normal, that’s what I love most about football. It’s not important what you spend. It’s not important who you are.

 

“It’s only important what you want to do - what you want to do together. So of course we can play against them; of course we can beat them.

“I don’t know if we can do it on Saturday but of course we can. We beat them with Dortmund and drew in Manchester. They had more money but that’s not what’s important.

“Money is only one part of success. The rest is work. That is what we are doing. We don’t think about Man City.

“I am not here to always talk about money. I am here to give the team some help to develop and that’s what we’ll do. The rest of the club is in a good way.

“What I can say is it is difficult for Man City, too, (on Saturday) because we are not the worst team in the world. We lost the last game, yes, but we did not do that bad. They know we are not in a bad shape.

“We can go there, play football and try to win. That’s what we want.”