Jurgen Klopp bites back at Liverpool's social media critics
By Sean Walsh
Jurgen Klopp has slammed Liverpool's critics on social media and goaded them by insisting it is good that they are not the ones who make decisions on club matters.
The Reds have stumbled through a rather sorry 2022/23 season by their own high standards, failing to replicate the marvellous 2021/22 campaign they had in which they won a cup-double and narrowly missed out on an unprecedented quadruple.
With several star players declining physically or simply in terms of form, the need for Liverpool to rebuild has been obvious.
But speaking at a press conference between Wednesday's 2-1 win at West Ham and Sunday's visit of Tottenham, Klopp took the opportunity to hit back at social media users who overreact to Liverpool's misfortunes.
"It is good that we make the decisions and we don't let the people who write on social media make the decisions, because that is the only one we hear," Klopp said.
"If you go to social media and look there you think: 'Oh my god! There is no bigger problem in the world than our midfield!' I understand it 100%.
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"Somebody showed me after the last game we played, a thing on Instagram and what people write about our line-up. Not a lot of them wanted Curtis Jones on the pitch or Cody Gakpo on the pitch and when they saw Joel Matip was playing they say they will watch the other game. And these are people who usually like us."
He added: "I understand that this season makes people nervous. We were not ourselves in big parts of the season, but we still have to make good decisions and not panic decisions where we say: 'That's it for him, he will never come back and play football for us again.' That is not how it is.
"That is why I said that whatever we do in the summer, it will not be enough for these people [on social media] in the first place. We have to make decisions on what we know and on the basis of the things we know. That is exactly what we will do.
"We have a lot of potential in this team and we didn't show it enough this year. We will keep that, use that, improve that and bring new players in. That is both possible, I think."
Who will Liverpool buy in their rebuild?
90min reported on Friday that Liverpool have been handed a huge boost in their pursuit of Ryan Gravenberch, who has asked Bayern Munich to soften their stance on a potential summer exit.
The Dutchman is one of a number of midfield targets the club have, with Liverpool also one of several Premier League teams who have watched Bristol City starlet Alex Scott in recent weeks.
The likes of Mason Mount, James Maddison, Mateo Kovacic and Florian Neuhaus are also on Liverpool's radar, while a move for Eintracht Frankfurt central defender Evan Ndicka is under consideration - he's out of contract at the end of the season and could be picked up on a free transfer.
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