Anfield Watch
·19 April 2024
Anfield Watch
·19 April 2024
Bastian Schweinsteiger says Manchester United’s recruitment teams can learn A LOT from how Jurgen Klopp has managed to rebuild Liverpool during his time in charge.
The Reds’ bitter rivals have a long list of transfer flops on their record since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson with the likes of Paul Pogba, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Harry Maguire and many more among their most expensive signings and yet barely turning the dial.
By contrast Liverpool have managed to assemble under Klopp successful teams featuring a host of undervalued signings.
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Joel Matip [free], Sadio Mane, [£30m], Mohamed Salah [£34m], Andy Robertson [£8m], Alexis Mac Allister [£35m] and Wataru Endo [£16m] are among Klopp’s biggest bargains, with the first quartet forming part of the backbone of Champions League, Premier League and Club World Cup-winning sides.
When Liverpool have spent big, as in the case of Alisson and Virgil van Dijk, it has generally paid off. And it must be said that those signings were furnished by the sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona.
The early years of Klopp’s reign were a masterclass of recruitment, featuring fantastic work from former sporting director Michael Edwards, now back under the FSG umbrella as CEO of Football.
It’s been estimated that under Klopp the Reds have a net spend of around £331m while at the same time United have spent closer to an astonishing £935m.
And while Liverpool have won almost every major honour under Klopp, United have stood still.
It’s just one area in which the Reds have outperformed their Old Trafford adversaries since Klopp’s installation.
Now former Man Utd midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger has taken aim. The 39-year-old signed for the club back in 2015 from Bayern Munich, playing only 18 Premier League matches in TWO SEASONS before moving to Chicago Fire in MLS.
Having watched Klopp’s career closely during his time with Bayern and again when the 56-year-old moved to Merseyside, Schweinsteiger holds his compatriot up as the kind of example United need to be following.
“Sometimes you spend the money completely wrong,” he told Gary Neville in a wide-ranging interview on the Sky Sports programme The Overlap.
“You have to adapt also to how football is changing or not changing. And the easiest example, and actually United should have learned out of it, is just, I don't know, how many miles is Liverpool away from United?”
Neville informs the World Cup winner it is just 45 miles from Manchester to Liverpool.
Bastian Schweinsteiger Jurgen Klopp
“Exactly. Just look over there. What did Klopp do? Did he sign a lot of huge money transfers? No, look where he got Robertson, like other players, the same he did at Borussia Dortmund.
“He found [Robert] Lewandowski, he found [Mario] Gotze, he found [Mats] Hummels, [Lukasz] Piszczek, [Jakub] Blaszczykowski, [Ilkay] Gundogan, all those players, [Marco] Reus.
“You just have to look 45 miles aside and just see how they do it and they have dominated since how long? It's stable, it's up there and it doesn't have the wave United does.”
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