Reports claimed Liverpool’s deal to sign Darwin Nunez could make him the most expensive player in their history, but Klopp has suggested some of the figures being spoken about are inaccurate.
Nunez arrived from Benfica for a base figure around £64 million, with a further £21.3 million in potential add-ons.
If those add-ons are fulfilled, the deal would be a club record, with the Uruguayan signing a six-year contract.
Those figures were made public by the selling club, Benfica, in a statement on their official website, detailing an initial deal worth €57 million, and a potential total fee of €100 million.
However, speaking in his press conference in Singapore on Thursday, Klopp appeared to suggest some of those numbers weren’t quite right.
When it was put to him that the club had spent “nearly €100 million including add-ons” on Nunez, the German claimed that information was false.
Asked how the transfer market had changed since he said he was against the idea of signing players for such big money in 2016, the Liverpool boss had an interesting response.
“A lot, obviously a lot. These kind of things happen,” Klopp said.
“The numbers [regarding Nunez] you are telling are not right, but it’s not a problem – I know which kind of number is going around in the world out there.
“When you want to sign a striker as exciting as Darwin is, that’s the market and you have to pay the price.
“As I said, it’s not the price you mentioned and not the prices going around, but it’s no problem.”
There will certainly be no questions surrounding Nunez’s price tag if he settles in a similar way to Klopp’s other big-money Liverpool signings, such as Virgil van Dijk and Alisson.
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The Liverpool boss was keen to stress there is no pressure on his new No. 27.
“I am not worried at all. The general judgement is 0.0 percent interesting. And it will be like this, and we all know it’s a joke or a game for some people to pick out some situations where a player is not doing well,” Klopp continued.
“The only really important thing first and foremost is how I judge the situation for the player. I couldn’t be more calm about it.
“I am completely convinced about his potential. And actually what our people think, the Liverpool supporters in the whole world.
“They should know now after a while that new players need time and get time, and we should be the first – all Liverpool supporters on this planet – who just delete the fee we paid. Just delete it, it’s not important.
“He’s now a boy from us and now we do absolutely everything to not only see the things we saw from him at Benfica; no, from there we go. This is the basis.
“And again, it is my responsibility to help Darwin that he can fulfil his full potential.”
Expect Nunez to feature as the Reds take on Crystal Palace in their second pre-season friendly on Friday.
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