Jurgen Klopp has admitted that his criticism of Manchester United spending nearly £100 million on Paul Pogba in 2016 was wrong.
His admission comes as Liverpool look set to land Moises Caicedo for £110 million after a tense transfer battle with Chelsea, a sign of how inflated the market has become in the current day.
"Everything changed. Do I like it? No, but did I realise that I was wrong? Yes, definitely. It is not great but that is the way it goes.
In the end, we as a club, we have to try and make sure that with our resources, we get the best possible team together.
We really try everything to bring together the best squad for us, that is the idea, we are not in dreamland, there is a lot of work to do, to do these types of things.
Sometimes one door closes, another opens up, if people want to throw my quotes from 5/6 years ago absolutely no problem, that day what I thought, I realise now I was wrong, easy to admit that."
The German confirmed a deal for the Ecuador international was completed, but could not answer whether the player was having a medical in the near future.
"First and foremost, I got told that I can confirm that the deal with the club is agreed. I cannot tell you, I don't know [about a medical].
When asked why the club could spend such an amount on Caicedo but not Jude Bellingham, who they had reportedly been chasing for around 2 years, Klopp suggested that it was a matter of circumstances changing.
"What did change is, we are a club, we have not endless resources, so if we didn't expect a couple of things happening in the summer, Hendo, Fab, stuff like this, we didn't think about this before the summer, to be honest.
When it happened, we gave it a go, and obviously the club really stretched it. Let's see what happens, we will go from there."
The 55-year-old also refused to speak on whether the club would do any further business after the Caicedo deal.
"Let's talk about that, if these types of things happen. Let's do it step by step, let's see what happens."
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Caicedo deal distraction?
Asked whether the pursuit of the Brighton man was a distraction ahead of their Premier League opener with Chelsea, Klopp dismissed that suggestion and was very complimentary of new Blues boss Mauricio Pochettino.
"One has nothing to do with the other. We prepare for Chelsea for a while, there is no distraction.
I think two really good football teams will face each other. We watched Chelsea on their tour, lot of good things, a really talented team, that is what we have to prepare for.
It is the first home game after a long break, disappointing season. They want to show up, Poch is a top manager, so they will show up.
You can see Poch is there, we played against Mauricio very often when he was at Tottenham, you can see a lot of similarities from that time.
I think Nkunku was a key part of the plans, very unfortunate for the boy and for Chelsea as well, they have really good options offensively to sort that.
Let's see it, it is the first competitive football game for us this season, we don't want to waste time, we really want to go for it, but we have to see how it goes."
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Reasons for optimism?
The German was seemingly very excited for the new season to begin, and with the changes that have been made to the squad at his disposal.
"I loved the pre-season so far, we worked hard. I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest, the boys were open, the boys were listening, eyes were open, ears were open.
We did a lot, not only on the pitch, in meetings as well. We really wanted to learn our game. We wanted to make sure that we really go to the next level in our game together.
You saw the pre-season games, there were moments where we were too open, not protected enough, the shouts are loud, I understand that. It is my job to help the boys to organise it better, help protect each other better in these moments."
"We have a new start, Liverpool FC reloaded if you want, it is an exciting thing.
Everybody was asking for changes, rightfully so, because we were together for a long time and things went really well, then not that well anymore.
It is a new chance for everybody, everybody has to step up. The new leadership group, not only them. If you look at the players who are not in the leadership group, but have everything you need to be a leader, it is exceptional.
The new boys are great, Cody, Dom is 22, captain of Hungary, Macca, outstanding.
We all share responsibility, let's do it, don't try to be like somebody, be the best version of yourself, and then we have a good chance to help the team in the best possible way."
The sessions I saw, the desire, the concentration, the readiness, the openness, just that I saw a lot of things where my thought was 'okay, they mean business'.
We want to show up, we want to be in the Champions League the year after, so there are two possibilities, you qualify for the Champions League or you win the Europa League, both pretty difficult, but we should try for both I would say, and then we will see if we can do it or not.
We have targets, we are highly motivated, my good feelings is on things I saw and things we did in the pre-season."
