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Frank Lampard has said he was amused by Jürgen Klopp’s criticism of Chelsea’s spending spree, noting that Liverpool would not have won the title last season without costly transfers.
Liverpool have made a single signing due to the uncertainty caused by Covid-19, buying Kostas Tsimikas from Olympiakos for £ 11.7 million, and Klopp has said that the Premier League champions are different from other clubs because they “are not owned of countries or of an oligarch ”. The pandemic has not affected Chelsea’s budget and its owner, Roman Abramovich, has given Lampard more than 200 million pounds to spend.
However, Lampard, who faced Klopp at the end of last season, played down the comments. He defended Chelsea’s aggressive approach after the end of its transfer ban and said Liverpool had spent a lot in previous summers.
“I found it a bit funny because when you talk about club owners, I don’t think it matters what line of business they come from,” said the Chelsea manager. “We are talking about some very wealthy owners in the Premier League. With the history of Liverpool, I made a lot of references last year. They have managed to get the recruitment to a really high level. The reality is that, apart from Leicester, most of the clubs that win the league today have recruited at a fairly high level in terms of money.
“You can go through the Liverpool players – [Virgil] van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, [Naby] Keïta, [Sadio] Mane, [Mohamed] Salah. Incredible players who were priced too high. Liverpool have done it for a while. What we have done is come out of a ban and try to address the situation ourselves. It is part of the course. There is no point in doing the math.
“We know that Liverpool have passed at a high level. We know they have an incredible coach. We know they have incredible players. The really smart thing Liverpool have done is to believe in their coach and his system for several years. It’s a great story, but it’s a story where they have spent money. This summer we have spent money and now the hard work has to come ”.
Lampard, who signed Thiago Silva for free and paid large fees to secure Ben Chilwell, Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech and Kai Havertz, accepted that Chelsea will have a target on their back.
“Those are the rules,” he said. “I would probably mention the transfer ban a lot last year. Maybe I felt that was one of the reasons we were 30 points behind the top two teams. … I feel like we have done it this summer with a view to bringing in young, highly talented players, with the exception of Thiago Silva and his age ”.
Lampard said Klopp was right that his signings needed time to consolidate. Chelsea, who are close to signing Rennes goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, were inconsistent last season and Lampard refused to promise he would compete for the title before Monday’s trip to Brighton.
“When you keep reading what Klopp said, he made it clear that bringing in a group of players is not going to be easy for us. We’re talking about some younger players from different leagues, so I think he was talking about that in a fair context. “
