Jurgen Klopp admits it is tough for youngsters to make their mark at Anfield as £50m signings arrive at the club.
Liverpool have made waves in the transfer market this summer by splashing out more than £150m on new players.
Alisson, Fabinho, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri have all rocked up on Merseyside with big price tags attached to them.
And that quartet will be expected to have an impact as Liverpool seek to compete at the business end of four competitions next season.
Alisson, Fabinho, Keita and Shaqiri will all get game time at the expense of youngsters coming out of the Reds’ youth system though.
And Klopp admits it’s hard for those emerging talents to breakthrough when Liverpool are making big-money signings.
“I’m excited, of course,” Klopp told Goal, when asked about Liverpool’s Under-18s and Under-23s sides. “But it’s getting more and more difficult for young boys at a club like Liverpool, to be honest.
“On one side we are buying players for 50 or 60 million, and on the other we are getting players for free from the youth team. But they need time and opportunity to play.
“They play in the U-23s, which is fine, but then they don’t like it that much. They train the whole week with the first team and then they go to play with the U-23s and the dressing room is as big as this table and there are no supporters! It’s not the same.
“You need to find a moment, but Trent came through without going on loan. That will not be possible for all of them, but we will see. If you have this kind of players, and you can get one through every two or three years, it’s massive. Massive!”
Jurgen Klopp insists searching for a like-for-like replacement for Philippe Coutinho was not part of Liverpool’s transfer plans this close-season because such a player does not exist.
Coutinho joined Barcelona in a blockbusting £142million deal in January but his departure did little to check Liverpool’s progress under Klopp as they sealed a top-four spot in the Premier League and reached the Champions League final.
The funds raised from the Brazil playmaker’s sale have been handsomely reinvested from the mid-season signing of centre-back Virgil van Dijk – a £75m arrival from Southampton – onwards.
Fabinho and Naby Keita, the latter a pre-agreed signing from RB Leipzig, will bolster Klopp’s midfield for the coming campaign, while Xherdan Shaqiri provides another creative attacking option.
“You cannot replace Phil Coutinho with exactly the same kind of player,” Klopp told reporters.
“He’s Phil Coutinho. He has a specific style of play, tactically an outstanding player. He can play as the winger, the 10, the eight – really great.
“I don’t want to put one of my players in the position where people will say constantly, ‘He’s the Phil replacement.’”Klopp is understandably proud of Liverpool’s performances from the second half of last season which, along with the impressive raft of recruits, has many tipping them for a sustained title bid this time around.
Nevertheless, the former Borussia Dortmund coach allowed himself to wonder how May’s Champions League defeat to Real Madrid might have played out had Coutinho still been at his disposal after injury struck talisman Mohamed Salah.
“I think the biggest thing we did in the second half of last season was that we didn’t need to speak too much about Phil,” he explained.
“That wasn’t clear in January. How could we have known that? If we still had Phil then we could have played him in the Champions League final and, when Mo [Salah] goes out injured, Phil goes on the left wing, Sadio [Mane] to the other side and bring a midfielder on.
“Then it’s a different story. That would have been nice but he wasn’t here and we wish him well.” Klopp added: “We don’t need to replace Phil. We need to make a squad for the next year. Out there in the market, there isn’t a Phil Coutinho-light. He’s not there. But there are a lot of good players and we have brought a few of them in.”
In August, Liverpool rejected a £72 million bid from Barcelona for Coutinho, prompting the player to submit a transfer request via email.However, two more improved bids from Barcelona were rejected, leading director Albert Soler to claim that Liverpool wanted £183 million which Liverpool denied.
