Press conferenceJürgen Klopp discusses Liverpool's approach in the transfer market

The Reds boss was asked about the club's recruitment policy when it comes to acquiring players to bolster his squad.

Read on for his comments...

On what is the 'key' to a successful recruitment policy...

No, there's no key, I don't think, apart from having smart people in the right positions – but I'm pretty sure other teams do have that as well. So, first and foremost, I love the fact and I'm pretty sure it will be a success with Luis [Diaz] but we should not judge him after one game, so we should not praise the recruitment, whatever. But I know what you mean. So, the boys we brought in, there were no bargains. It's not that Ali was not really expensive – OK, I think today everybody would say, 'Yes, that was at least the price I would have paid for him if I would have known how good he is.' Similar to Virgil. Then we brought Fabinho in, we brought Naby Keita in, we brought Sadio in, Mo in, so many players.

It's no secret but the situation in this club here is that our transfers have to hit the ground [running] because we cannot make a £40m, £50m signing and in the end we think, 'If he's [not] playing it's not so important' or whatever. It can always happen for injury reasons and stuff like this, but it should not happen very often because it's not that we, [as] we say in Germany, swim in money. It's a wealthy club with no problems but the policy here is clear – we spend what we earn. If we earn more, we can spend more. If we earn less, we can spend less. It means not that we can do nothing but for us it's very important that we have to do absolutely the right thing and we have to think once about it, twice about it, three times about it and maybe a fourth time about it. And if we think the fifth time about it, the player might go to another club – but we cannot change that. That's what we did so far. The club had incredible free transfers with James [Milner] and Joel [Matip], and we brought real talents in with Robbo and other guys. We have our own boys, players were already here before I came and all these kind of things. It's a mix of everything.

Actually, I think transfers are [a] very emotional business for the outside world, the fans think about it a lot with their heart, and we have to just think about it. Cut off the heart, just think about it, what makes sense, what do you need now, what do you need tomorrow – that's the transfer business. It's not so easy – for us it's pretty easy – to ignore the public pressure, to be honest. Around these dates, it's always like, 'If you don't sign, you don't work.' We see it slightly different. But I don't see that any different to other teams, it's always the same. But obviously with Michael Edwards and his team, and now Julian Ward and his team, we have brilliant people here who make really good proposals. And we as coaches, we make good proposals as well. And in the end, so far, we found, more often than not, the right solution for this team.

On the process of 'finding players other clubs aren't looking at'...

About timing as well. I'm 100 per cent sure Diogo Jota a year later would have had offers from other top clubs, so that's how it is. Maybe in the year we wanted him it was not the case, I don't know, to be 100 per cent honest.

Similar with Mo. If Mo would have played another season at Roma in a similar manner, probably would have improved there as well, there would've been other clubs in. So it's about timing, it's about what you need in that moment. We were lucky when we were looking for a winger the first time that we found Sadio Mane at Southampton. It was not difficult to find him because he was there, he played against us, scored goals against us. For all the players it's the same, the most important thing that a signing and a transfer works is that the team they join is in a good place. That helps massively. So it's a settled team, the new player doesn't have to come in and change the world from the first day. That helps massively. If you have to as a new player, with all the new things you face every day, if you have to then be the one who makes the difference next Saturday against whoever, that makes life really difficult.

Since I'm here, that was never the case here. The team was always already good before the new player arrived and he could settle in – some quicker, some needed a bit more time. But we didn't have to put any kind of pressure on the new arrivals because they had time. I think the best example is maybe Fabinho; when he came here it was for him really tricky to adapt to the way we play, the system we play with one six instead of a double six and all these kind of things. So he had to adapt to it. We tried to help him but it was not that we could do that overnight. If a player with the value of £40m, £50m, £60m, whatever, £30m, £20m, they all have quality, the same quality but you can't create a situation for them, the situation has to be there. When they arrive, then they need to join, in an ideal world, a settled team and then they can help them to make the next step.