Jurgen Klopp Explains Liverpool's Lack of High Profile Signings and Discusses Community Shield Loss

Jurgen Klopp has explained Liverpool's unusually uneventful summer of transfer business and has also had his say on the Reds' title contenders Manchester City.

They produced a shaky performance during the first half of their Community Shield clash with the Premier League champions on Sunday but made up for it with a much improved second half display which left them unfortunate to lose on penalties.

Following their busy end to the 2018/19 campaign and mixed bag of pre-season results, head coach Klopp discussed his side's quiet window and his ambitions to finally topple Pep Guardiola's City.

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He touched on the lack of signings, tellingSky Sports: "You should never do transfers because other clubs are doing transfers. That makes no sense, it's not about that. And if you sit back for a second and have a look at the squad, do we need more players? People will say, yes, we need a substitute for Sadio Mane, for Mohamed Salah, whatever.

"It's just that what is new is seen as more exciting. It's like with a new car. Your old car is completely reliable, but you want a new one and two weeks later it breaks down. It looks better, but obviously it's not that good."

Klopp previously caused tension when he suggested Liverpool can't compete financially with the spending power of Manchester City, but was quick to reiterate how those comments were taken out of context.

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He added: "When I said we have to pay bills, that's normal, I know people took that as criticism for other clubs, but it was not the intention. I was just explaining our situation. Sorry, but we do have to pay bills. And that's all good.

"New players are never the only solution. And making this team stronger, the starting lineup, that's really difficult and very expensive and we don't have that money."

Klopp has already backed the youth prospects Harvey Elliott and Rhian Brewster to step up and provide more squad depth rather than relying on huge spending.

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He said: "We will try to keep them out of the public eye as they make themselves ready for the moment they make the step into the Premier League, but it's really nice seeing these boys in training because the excitement and freshness they are showing is really unbelievable."

But perhaps tired of facing so many transfer related questions despite Liverpool doing little business themselves, Klopp turned his attention to the action on the pitch, discussing City's quality.

Following the Community Shield loss, he explained: "When you play City you can be in your best shape, in your best moment of the season, and you still struggle. We are obviously not in our best moment. We had a couple of difficult games for different reasons in pre-season, so we didn't know how it would go.

"But I thought the second half was really, really good. We had to work so hard, but that's good for us because we realised we can work that hard.

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"My respect is too big that I would take one game as an example for how it's going to be this season.

"We were not at 100 per cent, City were not at 100 per cent, that's how it is. But I saw a lot of quality things on the City side again."

As impressed as he has been with Guardiola's side, Klopp still believes there are plenty of teams who are ready to compete for the Premier League title during the 2019/20 season.

He said: "Everton, for example, have tried to stay very ambitious. They have done a lot and I think there are still maybe a couple of players to come in. They had a good team last year and they have improved, with very interesting signings.

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"I don't know where people get the idea that Arsenal will not challenge, that Chelsea will not challenge with Frank [Lampard] bringing complete excitement to the club."