Liverpool transfer news and rumours: Jurgen Klopp teases new signings as Italian club cools Mario Balotelli interest
The biggest transfer news to come from Anfield on Wednesday 3 August 2016
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Your support makes all the difference.Jurgen Klopp says he has “no idea” if Liverpool will dip back into the transfer market ahead of the new Premier League season after missing out on a host of targets this summer.
Despite being unable to lure Mario Gotze, who returned to Borussia Dortmund, and Leicester City defender Ben Chilwell to Anfield in recent weeks, Klopp has nonetheless strengthened in several areas since the Europa League final defeat by Sevilla.
Georginio Wijnaldum and Sadio Mane headline a list of signings also including Loris Karius, Alex Manninger, Joel Matip, Ragnar Klavan and Marko Grujic but Klopp insists his scouting team did their due diligence on each of them regardless of reputations.
“Is the activity all over? I have no idea,” the Reds manager said. “I don’t think so. We will see what happens. If the Roma game was our base then we have to change everything but it isn’t.
“Was the Milan game more our base? Maybe. But Roma? No. “(Joe) Gomez, (Mamadou) Sakho and Lucas are all injured so of course we haven’t got enough centre-backs at the moment. But we have to handle situations. There have been too many games with not enough centre-backs. We can’t sign someone just for a few weeks. In other positions we do have cover.”
Meanwhile it has been reported that Italian club Pescara have withdrawn their interest in signing misfit striker Mario Balotelli after he was spotted smoking just two weeks ahead of the upcoming season.
The Italian scored just once on loan with AC Milan last season and Pescara’s club president Daniele Sebastiani has now insisted he no longer wants to sign Balotelli. He told Sport Mediaset: “I know that his is the name that would get the most attention but Mario is a great player and I think that the last thing he would do would be to come and play at Pescara or Crotone.
“We don't need to buy figurines just to make somebody happy. We're working behind the scenes on finding players with the right profile for Pescara. We're running our own transfer market and if we want to do anything, we need to be patient.”
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