Jurgen Klopp says that he scouted possible alternatives to Virgil van Dijk many times, but made the call not to sign them.
Liverpool have already conceded five times to Manchester City, three goals to Watford and two to Sevilla this season, with questions again asked of Klopp’s defensive organisation.
Liverpool have Dejan Lovren, Ragnar Klavan, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip, but Klopp says that there was nobody better than what he had.
“We watched all of them 500 million times, and to cool the people down what if the new player doesn’t hit the first ball and he makes exactly the same mistake?” Klopp said.
“A mistake they all made in their life – but it is like, ‘he is a £65 million signing, he will improve’. Why do you think the other one cannot improve? I don’t understand that.
“For me it’s really difficult always to come to your planet, visit you and say ‘yeah you’re right, there were five good options out there and we missed them because, I don’t know, we wanted to spend the money anywhere else’.
“It is not that we ignore it – I said if there would have been a solution out there we would have done it. I had to make a decision and the decision was our boys are not worse than them.
“It is concentration. It is not a quality thing. But if there’s no-one, no solution out there, and no real quality issue then you have to work on it and that is what we will do.”
