Jamie Carragher has shed light on one instance where Liverpool fans might be glad that the club’s hierarchy overruled Jurgen Klopp’s judgement.
In June 2017, the Reds completed one of the greatest transfers in their history with the £36.9m acquisition of Mo Salah from Roma (The Guardian). However, if the manager had gotten his way, it would’ve been a different player bolstering our attacking options that summer.
Speaking on The Overlap during a discussion on which stakeholders should have the biggest say in terms of a club’s transfer policy, the Sky Sports pundit revealed: “A really interesting one is Mo Salah, and Jürgen Klopp has been quite open about this. He didn’t want to sign Mo Salah.
“He wanted to sign Julian Brandt – I think he was at Leverkusen at the time – and Liverpool had tried to sign Salah when he went to Chelsea [in 2014], so the people behind the scenes were still there. Salah then went to Roma, and they [Liverpool hierarchy] were very adamant that ‘No, we have to sign this player’.
“You look at what Mo Salah has done. It can easily go the other way, but I do feel that this idea that a manager should just buy every player – I don’t think it’s right.”
Brandt has gone on to have a distinguished career in his native Germany, surpassing 400 appearances combined for Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund and winning 47 caps for his country (Transfermarkt).
However, every Liverpool fan on Earth will be forever grateful that the club instead moved for Salah in 2017, with the Egyptian going on to become our fifth-highest scorer of all time on 204 goals and counting (lfchistory.net), often being the Reds’ difference maker in their moment of need.
We’re sure Klopp won’t be too perturbed about having been overruled on that one!
You can view Carragher’s comments below (from 14:59), via The Overlap on YouTube: