Jurgen Klopp has explained how Alisson’s £66m price-tag paled into insignificance compared to Jan Oblak’s €100m fee.
The Slovenian plays for Atletico Madrid and has a mammoth release-clause which is the only way the Spaniards would have considered selling.
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Klopp claimed that because of our necessity to land a top stopper, the money to bring Alisson in was essential – and that the market in which we price a goalkeeper now has changed.
It’ll be interesting to see what Jack Butland goes for when Stoke decide to sell the Englishman.
Interestingly, Klopp also praised Simon Mignolet and Loris Karius – but we’re under no illusions either of the pair will start the season between the sticks when we’ve just acquired the world’s dearest gloveman.
“Everybody thinks it’s a lot of money. It is a lot of money,” Klopp told ESPN FC, cited in F365. “But he could’ve left for crazy money.
“The clause for Oblak for example is €100m, so nice! And that’s it in this year where obviously a few things happen on the goalkeeper position.
“That’s part of the job, to try to bring the best players you can get.
“The goalkeeper market is different because it’s not each year that there is anybody available and stuff like that.
“We didn’t know exactly if Alisson is available or not, but from a specific moment we realized obviously he is available and that’s what the moment when we decided we want to go for him.
“We are really fine with our goalkeepers. So there’s no doubts Simon Mignolet – big quality, absolutely Premier League highest-level quality, Loris Karius as well.
“Yes, we all know what happened in the final, but we know as well why it’s not about that.
“It’s not the reason. We really wanted to bring in a player which we didn’t have before to be honest and that’s what happened with Alisson.”
We cannot wait to see the Brazilian no.1 make his debut, which will likely be in the friendly just before the campaign gets underway on August 4th against Napoli.
It’s massively important that all fans get behind him and instil the confidence into the position that has been lacking for many a season.