Lampard says Klopp’s ‘countries and oligarchs’ rant was funny because LFC have spent big before

Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has hit out at Jurgen Klopp for comments he made about “clubs owned by countries and oligarchs” when talking about the Reds’ spending habits.

In an interview with BBC 5 Live, the Liverpool boss told reporters not to expect the Premier League champions to splash the cash this summer like the Londoners, with regards to the ongoing pandemic.

Klopp name-checked Chelsea when talking about the Reds’ financial situation, lumping them into the category of free-spending clubs owned by oligarchs.

Unsurprisingly, Lampard has now responded to these comments – but thankfully he didn’t completely throw his toys out of the pram like last time.

“I was less annoyed with it, I found it slightly amusing” the Chelsea boss told Sky Sports. “Because I think when you talk about the owners of clubs, I don’t think it matters what line of business they come from.

“I think with Liverpool’s story – it’s a fantastic story of a club over four-and-a-half, five years that Jurgen Klopp’s been there that have managed to get recruitment right to a really high level.

“And the reality is probably, other than maybe Leicester, which is an incredible story, most clubs that win the Premier League in the modern day have recruited well and recruited at a high level money-wise.

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“And you can go through the Liverpool players: van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, Keita, Mane, Salah, incredible players, that came at a very high price.

“So Liverpool have done it, and they’ve done it over a period of time. What we’ve done is come off the back of a ban, probably tried to address the situation ourselves to help improve us.”

Lampard is both right and wrong – while Liverpool have spent, we’ve done so over a lengthy period of time and it’s been almost entirely financed by big-name outgoings like Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho.

Chelsea sold Eden Hazard to Real Madrid last summer, but the £88.5million they got for the Belgian [Guardian] isn’t close to the near-£250million they’ve spent this summer alone [Mail].

But he is right in saying it’s par for the course nowadays – most successful clubs in world football are forced to spend big at some point to keep up with the pack.

It’s just especially shocking for one to spend a quarter of a billion pounds in a few weeks – not something most clubs can do – which inflates expectations from fans.