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Manchester City are baffled by Jurgen Klopp’s jibes about their transfer spending.

The Liverpool boss has given an extra edge to Sunday’s Community Shield meeting of the two rivals by twice recently claiming his club cannot compete with the Blues’ spending.

That is despite Liverpool breaking the world record for a transfer spend in a calendar year last year, when they stumped up an astonishing £248million.

City, by contrast, had their second lowest net spend since the 2008 takeover in the last financial year, of around £22million, although they have broken their club record for single buys for the last two summers to land Riyad Mahrez for £60million and Rodri for £62.6million.

That has not cowed Klopp who said at the weekend: “We are not in this fantasy land where you just get whatever you want. You cannot do it constantly” and then cited City as one of four clubs who can spend big in every window.

That was the second time in a week that Klopp had talked about the Blues spending, but his reasons are unclear.

The Blues have not been angry about Klopp’s strange comments, but chief operating officer Omar Berrada admits they have been puzzled.

“We were a little bit surprised,” said the man whose hands are on the City purse strings. “Liverpool are a great sporting rival.

"I don’t know why they would make these comments. I don’t know why they would look at other clubs.

"It’s not frustration or anger, we just find it curious that they’d be highlighting our spending. We’re fine with their spending.”

This summer Liverpool have been quiet in the market, only signing defender Sepp van den Berg in a deal worth around £3million.

City have paid a club record £62.6million for Rodri and around £5million for Angelino, but that spending has again been offset by the sales of Douglas Luiz, Fabian Delph, Manu Garcia and Pablo Mari for a combined £30million.

City’s net spend for 2018-19 was around £22million, compared to Liverpool’s £127million.

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And in other areas the Merseyside club have dwarfed City’s outlay their wage bill of £264million is the second biggest in the Premier League, with City spending around £260million.

City have also spent less on agents’ fees, forking out around £24million, almost half of Liverpool’s £44million – which saw them top that particular table for the second year running.

The Blues have never criticised or even commented on Liverpool’s spending, as Berrada said: “The reality is that all the top clubs invest as they see fit. Saying us, PSG, Real Madrid and Barcelona always invest £200m is not correct. We don’t look at what others do.”