Jonathan Northcroft: Jurgen Klopp’s irritation over Liverpool transfer mania outed a football myth

They still haven’t signed anyone and are one of only two clubs in Europe’s top leagues (the other is Girona) yet to add to their squad in the transfer window. “Awful planning,” moaned one of the many disgruntled fans on Twitter, “but we’re getting used to it.”

Wait. This is Leicester. The very club who turned football on its head by proving that spending is not necessary for attaining glory. Who, since Brendan Rodgers arrived in 2019 and began building on the legacy of the club’s miracle title win, have finished fifth, fifth and eighth, while maintaining a measured transfer policy.

Never mind mitigating factors, such as Leicester’s new head of recruitment, Martyn Glover, having to wait until last week before Southampton would release him. Or Youri Tielemans not yet completing an expected move to Arsenal (with financial fair play concerns and a high wages-to-turnover ratio, Leicester would prefer to sell before they buy). Signings. That’s what Leicester supporters want. And they’re not alone.

I have a friend who announced ten years ago that his favourite part of the season was the transfer window – it was better than the actual football. That blew my mind in 2012. But in 2022 it seems a not uncommon view. Fans crave deals and obsess about details like net spend, structured payments and achievable add-ons in ways that would have baffled a previous generation. Commonly, they equate volume of signings with likelihood of success – despite all the evidence suggesting it’s a false correlation.

Jurgen Klopp was baffled when, at a press conference last week, he was hit by questions about why “Liverpool haven’t signed any midfielders”. Supporters were unhappy, he was told.

In fact, Liverpool have recruited a midfielder, and potentially a very good one: Fabio Carvalho, who at Fulham last season emerged as perhaps the most exciting talent in England outside the Premier League, producing 11 goals and eight assists and playing for Portugal Under-21.

They have also signed the exciting talent of Darwin Nunez, for a potentially club record-breaking pounds 85 million fee (if performance-related add-ons are achieved) and a brilliant, scrambled-over young defender in Calvin Ramsay. Plus, they smashed their wage structure to retain Mohamed Salah. But, for some, this is not enough.

“I do not understand,” Klopp said. “People told me about this discussion but the last thing that would have crossed my mind is that we have to do this [sign another midfielder].” When put to him that his midfield, in 2021-22, had a modest output in terms of goals and assists he replied: “I know all these things, that we, ‘Don’t score enough goals from midfield,’ but what do we want? This Golden Cow that is producing everything, milk as well.”

His point would be that, in his football, the functions – attacking, creating, defending – are performed as an 11-man machine and that his midfield is the facilitating engine. The ball does not go in the net without its groundwork, regardless of who scores or assists.

Indeed, Liverpool banged in a club record 147 goals last season and lost four out of 63 games. But for Thibaut Courtois having the game of his life in the Champions League final and Manchester City’s insane comeback to beat Aston Villa in the final minutes of the title race, Liverpool would have won the Quadruple.

So, logic suggests that no great surgery is needed. And logic also says it makes sense to try to wait for Jude Bellingham, likely to be available next summer, which appears to be the Klopp strategy. But logic, to signings-hungry supporters, is what restraint is to an addict. Although the majority of Liverpool fans are savvy, the fevered minority still speak loud enough to annoy Klopp.

Liverpool’s three summer signings (Klopp says there are unlikely to be more) is in line – historically – with the quantity a club with title pretensions should make. Over the past ten seasons, the team who went on to become Premier League champions recruited an average 3.4 adult first-team players in the summer. The average for teams finishing bottom, by the way, was 9.5.

Last summer, City were criticised for not buying a striker after a long pursuit of Harry Kane foundered. Jack Grealish was their sole recruit. A number of pundits, accordingly, predicted they would finish outside the top two. City won the league with 93 points, scoring 99 goals.

The year before, Klopp faced questions for not adding to his squad. Liverpool went on to claim their first title in 30 years. And the year before that, City again made one summer signing and went on to win the league, while Tottenham Hotspur made zero signings – and reached the Champions League final.

The research group, CIES Football Observatory, has been looking into the correlation between success and squad stability for some time. In 2018, after a survey of every league in Europe, it published research stating “the analysis … reveals the existence of a general rule: the best performing teams have much more stable squads than the least competitive ones,” adding that, “while the recruitment of new players is important, overactivity in the market often reflects a lack of strategic planning.”

Europe’s most active club with transfers that year was Diyarbakirspor in Turkey, a remarkable 96.4 per cent of whose squad had been signed during the previous 12 months. They were relegated. As were Bulgaria’s Neftochimic Burgas, the second-most transfer-reliant club in the survey.

Further CIES analysis showed that, from 2009-17, the four clubs making the lowest percentage of signings were Bayern Munich, who won six titles and the Champions League; Barcelona, who enjoyed the greatest period in their history; CSKA Moscow, who won three titles and three Russian cups; and IFK Mariehamn, a tiny club from the Aland Islands who won the Finnish league for the very first time.

Meanwhile, the least transfer-reliant European club this year – according to another measure, the average time spent at the club by players used – was Real Madrid, who made a mere two signings last summer (David Alaba and Eduardo Camavinga) and who won La Liga and the Champions League.

Sir Alex Ferguson never liked to make too many signings at once. “We don’t want to confuse ourselves, otherwise you end up with too many players and trying to keep them all happy,” he said. Jose Mourinho always felt three or four signings per summer was about right, and Klopp and Pep Guardiola prioritised quality over quantity long before arriving in the Premier League.

Arsene Wenger spoke out against the modern mania for transfers towards the end of his coaching career. “Firstly [the demand for new signings] is most of the time to calm anxiety for the fans. It is reassuring to have a big name come in and, secondly, the media put you under pressure to get a new name,” he said.

“But let’s not forget that football is as well about stability. That goes a little bit against the demand of what people want, but success is linked with talent and cohesion.”

That was in the middle of the 2015-16 season, when Arsenal were favourites for the title, but a club with a squad assembled carefully over time, by a measured recruitment department, for a total spend of pounds 22 million went on to be champions, and that, of course, was Leicester.

– The Sunday Times

Originally published as Jonathan Northcroft: Jurgen Klopp’s irritation over Liverpool transfer mania outed a football myth