Chelsea's Lampard 'amused' by Klopp's dig at club's spending

Frank Lampard has said he was "amused" by Jurgen Klopp's dig at Chelsea's massive spending spree and added that Liverpool's title success was built on a similar financial outlay.

Klopp said on Thursday that Manchester City and Chelsea were more immune to the financial effects of the coronavirus pandemic due to being "owned by countries, owned by oligarchs" and added that Liverpool "are a different kind of club" from them.

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"I was less annoyed with it [Klopp's comments], I found it more, slightly amusing I would say," Lampard said.

"When you talk about the owners of clubs in the Premier League, I do not think it matters what line of business they come from. We are talking about some very wealthy owners."

Lampard pointed to the money Liverpool invested in a host of players included £75 million acquisition of Virgil van Dijk from Southampton and the then world-record fee for a goalkeeper when Alisson joined from Roma for £67m in July 2018.

"With Liverpool's story, I think it is a fantastic story of a club over the five years that Jurgen Klopp has been there that they have managed to get recruitment right to a really high level," he added.

"The reality is that, probably other than Leicester, most clubs that win the Premier League in the modern day have recruited well at quite a high level money-wise. You can go through the Liverpool players, Van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, [Naby] Keita, [Sadio] Mane, [Mohamed] Salah, incredible players that came at a very high price. But Liverpool have done it over a period of time."

Chelsea are closing in on their seventh major summer signing with talks at an advanced stage over a deal worth around £20m to bring in goalkeeper Edouard Mendy from Rennes, taking their overall spend in the current window to approximately £220m.

Mendy is set to join Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, Ben Chilwell, Thiago Silva, Malang Sarr and Kai Havertz as Chelsea seek to close a gap which saw them finish in fourth place last season but 33 points behind champions Liverpool.

"What we have done is come off the back of a ban, probably tried to address the situation ourselves to help improve us, but I think it is par for the course," Lampard said.

"There is no point in doing the maths too much with it, we all know Liverpool have spent at a high level. They have spent huge amounts.

"We know they have an incredible coach, incredible players and the smart thing that Liverpool have done is believe in their coach and their system for a number of years. It is a great story but it is a story that has spent money on players."