TRANSFER TALK Jurgen Klopp gives his most forthright interview yet on his Liverpool transfer frustrations

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists he will not “cry like a five-year-old kid” if he does not get what he wants in the transfer market.

The Reds boss was short of a centre-back even before the season started after opting not to replace Dejan Lovren when he joined Zenit St Petersburg.

Klopp’s plan was to use Fabinho as a stop-gap solution but serious knee injuries to Virgil Van Dijk and Joe Gomez, plus Joel Matip’s ongoing fitness issues, mean the Brazil international is virtually a permanent fixture in the back four.

There appears no chance of a reinforcement being bought in the January transfer window and despite the German accepting it would help his side’s cause after a run of five league matches without a win, he accepts the current situation.

“I am not a five-year-old kid any more and if I don’t get what I want I start crying,” said Klopp, who said senior figures within the club who control the finances have the final say as the implications of the coronavirus pandemic take their toll.

“Most of the time in my life I didn’t get what I want. We are all probably pretty much used to that.

“I am responsible for a big part of this club but there are people responsible for the whole thing and I cannot make their decisions. I know they are with us and they want to support us and they do.

“A centre-half would help 100 per cent. Would we score more goals with a centre-half? I am not sure. Would it give us more stability in specific moments? Probably yes.

“It is not about what it would be like with someone else and never ever we spoke in the transfer window like this because it would be an excuse and we don’t need that.

“What we have to do is improve the football in a decisive area we play with this squad, that’s my job, and not sitting here and being disappointed or frustrated with some decisions. I’m not.

“I know what we would do in an ideal world but the world is not ideal, not only for us and we all have to deal with the situation.

“A centre-half (in the 1-0 defeat at home to Burnley) would not have won us the game in this specific situation so we really don’t have to talk about that.”

Four league matches without a goal is the club’s worst run in almost 21 years.

However, Klopp refused to see it as any bigger a challenge than anything else he has encountered at Anfield.

“Everything we did in the last five years felt like a challenge. There is a different challenge. Is it as big? I don’t know,” he added.

“It is not like when we win the league I put my feet on the desk and think, ‘That’s it now’ and smoke a cigar and think, ‘Well done, from now on everything will work without any doing of mine’.

“It is not a situation you want but if you are not happy with a situation then you work and that is what we will do.

“I think we could have played better, we could have made better decisions. That is what we expect from ourselves and that means we can change that.

“We believe 100 per cent we can change that with this squad. We don’t go, ‘If we don’t get this or that we cannot perform’.

“I know it is a good thing for you (the media) to talk about but for me it is not that important because everything is on the table and all the things are clear and we just have to work on the football stuff.”

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Press Association