Klopp reveals the Arsenal player he would have loved to sign, not Saka

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has named Martin Odegaard as the player he would have loved to sign as he has ‘always followed’ him and his development.

He made this claim ahead of the the Gunners weekend game against Liverpool on Sunday.

This is also coming after Klopp is reported to be interested in the signature of Bukayo Saka.

Klopp insists that he’s ‘really happy’ for Odegaard’s progression.

“I like him a lot, that’s easy in the moment I think,” Klopp said of Odegaard in an interview with TV2. “It was a bit more difficult at the start of his career at Madrid, it didn’t look like it would work out.

“I was really disappointed about that because we wanted him at Dortmund, we wanted him as well when he was very young, we had a long talk when he was a kid still, with his dad, in the end he decided for Madrid, that’s fine,” the Liverpool boss added.

“That’s why I’ve followed him always, I’m really happy he’s become the player we all expected him to be, and even better if you want, he has a massive role in an unbelievably strong Arsenal team. He’s still young, clear mind, very influential, cannot say anything negative about him, to be honest. A top player.”

Then, when asked how impressive it has been to see the Gunners skipper grow into a top player, Klopp replied: “Very impressive because you can imagine in quite a while in the business I’ve seen a lot of talent, massive talents, crazy talents, for Martin at the time I think he was 15, I think he was playing in the first league in Norway, the whole world went mad.

“Maybe I’m not sure, you’ll have to ask him, but maybe I was too honest that time because I told him he’s still a kid, school, all these kind of things, fine, but we want to be the environment where he can grow. If you compare Dortmund to the city of Madrid, as nice as it is, Madrid… maybe I would’ve made the same decision, but I would’ve loved that time if he joined us.

“But it’s all fine, that’s not important. Until he was 15 probably nothing went against him in his way, from that moment on a lot of things went [against] in his way, it makes you the player you are now, the human being you are now, the man you are now, and I think they are pretty happy with how it went.”