Jurgen Klopp believes he has now made the Liverpool team his own with a series of transfer window moves that include the expulsion of Joe Allen, £13M to Stoke City, Kolo Toure, Released and Jordan Ibe, £15M to Bournemouth, and brought in the likes of Joel Matip, Free from Schalke and Sadio Mane, £34M from Southampton. Now, he is looking to offload Christian Benteke if some appropriate offer comes in.
With all these moves happening there inevitably has been a switch of roles throughout the team and now the likes of Belgian striker Benteke are both out of favour and out of position, with Klopp telling Sky Sports that he expects Benteke to leave as he and the player believe “it makes sense”.
Klopp then went on to say that if clubs want a “real striker”, they will have to make “real offers”. This could be the first shot in the dark at Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger as there always seems to be a limit on the Frenchman’s spending habits, occasionally breaking these, likes of Ozil and Sanchez. This may also be in retort to the £40,000,001 bid for Luis Suarez from a couple of seasons back.
The Liverpool manager then went on to add that certain clubs try to “gamble” on players. Could this be a shot at Wenger for trying to move players like Theo Walcott into striker positions to see how they fare when injuries mount up or the continual reliance on Olivier Giroud and his faith that he will produce the goods necessary?
He then ended his statement with three simple words, “we are serious”. Many fans of the #WengerOut army believe that he has lost his gift, relies too much on the youth and development of his squad and that he is not doing enough to make a serious title bid throughout this window. With the statement of intent made by Jurgen Klopp, Christian Benteke is certainly on his way out of Anfield.
These subliminal shots could mean that not only will Arsene Wenger have to deal with another season of the “Special One”, Jose Mourinho (now at Manchester United), but there could be love lost between himself and the manager of Liverpool.