Klopp owes huge thank you to Dortmund star Brandt after Liverpool snub

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Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp does not often miss out on his transfer targets as his successful moves in the market have demonstrated over the years. But when the German fails to convince a player to join his Anfield dynasty, the silver lining is that it seems to work out for the better anyway – and so it proved after he missed out on signing Borussia Dortmund star Julian Brandt.

Back in 2018, Liverpool were hunting for reinforcements to rein in Manchester City after suffering the double devastation of missing out on the Premier League and losing in the Champions League final to La Liga giants Real Madrid.

Klopp had identified Brandt, then just 22 and thriving at Bayer Leverkusen, as a top target for the Reds. But the attacking midfielder was not sold on leaving the German club at that stage in his career and turned down the chance to leave Leverkusen, explaining the World Cup had played a part in his decision.

“My gut feeling and my head are telling me the time to move has not arrived yet. I have to straighten things out in Leverkusen,” Brandt told Kicker magazine in 2018.

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“Of course there are players who say a year without European football before the World Cup is good reason to move. But if you move to a bigger club a year before the World Cup, you risk taking time at first to settle which possibly means playing fewer games.”

It is a decision Brandt may now regret five years later given Liverpool’s success, with today (Tuesday May 2) his 27th birthday. Not only did Germany bow out of the World Cup group stages, Liverpool decided to move onto another target recommended by former sporting director Michael Edwards.

Edwards was reportedly the ‘driving force’ behind their interest in Mohamed Salah after missing out on Brandt, and it was even claimed that Klopp didn’t really want the Egyptian. That turned out to be a seismic moment in Liverpool’s history as Edwards pushed through a £37m deal with Roma to sign the former Chelsea winger.

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“It’s a real advert for the job of the sporting director Michael Edwards,” German expert Raphael Honigstein said on The Totally Football Show podcast in 2018.

“[He] had been getting a lot of criticism in Liverpool for some of the decisions that they’ve made over the last few years. This is one where Klopp has just stepped aside and said ‘I didn’t really want Salah, but he convinced me to take him’.

“They were going for Julian Brandt, who is very talented but it’s inconceivable what the season would have looked like if it had been Brandt instead of Salah.”

Salah went on to score a then-Premier League record of 32 goals in a 38-game season in his first campaign at Anfield and became the quickest Liverpool player to reach 100 Premier League goals, as well as winning the Premier League and Champions League.

He remains a key cog in the Liverpool side under Klopp and the 30-year-old has bagged 17 goals in the Premier League this season, as well as providing seven assists.

Brandt’s fortunes have not been quite as prosperous since joining Borussia Dortmund in 2019, although he is on course to register his best goal return of his career and could even claim the Bundesliga title this season.

The next time he bumps into Klopp, the pair may share a pleasant joke about what could have been – but there will be millions of Liverpool fans grateful that his mooted move never materialised after Salah’s unbridled success.

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