You'll have plenty to celebrate when you subscribe to the Liverpool FC newsletter Sign me up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Jurgen Klopp believes the progress Liverpool have made during his reign should convince his top talent that they can achieve all their ambitions at Anfield.

The Reds have spent the summer battling to retain the services of Philippe Coutinho, who submitted a transfer request in a bid to force through a move to Barcelona.

The La Liga outfit are expected to test the club’s resolve once again with a third bid in exceess of £100million, but Liverpool are adamant that Coutinho will be staying put.

Barcelona’s need for reinforcements was underlined by the 5-1 thrashing on aggregate they suffered at the hands of arch rivals Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup. Currently, they are a team in decline, but Klopp is buoyant about his own club’s prospects having led the Reds to the brink of qualification to the group stage of the Champions League.

He said: “Can you imagine for a minute I am not a little bit interested about the problems or not of Barcelona?

“I will never talk about something I spoke about with a player. But you can imagine, in general, I think for each player Liverpool is a very good club, a very good team in the moment.

“We have a good age of the group. We have very young boys, experience - it’s a good mix and we are on our way.

“I think we got rid of the expectations of 20 years ago and created our own expectations for all the people. They expect a lot from us because of what we did last season.

(Image: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

“I am fine with the situation and I am very positive about the project of Liverpool. I don’t see a lot of reasons for each player to leave the club at the moment and that’s just in general.”

Coutinho remains sidelined by a back problem and won’t feature against Crystal Palace at Anfield on Saturday.

Klopp admits the 25-year-old has been missed during the opening week of the season. The manager shifted Coutinho into an advanced central midfield role towards the end of last term so he could pull the strings to a greater degree.

With Coutinho and Adam Lallana (thigh) both ruled out, Klopp’s midfield options have been reduced and it’s an area where Liverpool have lacked dynamism during the games against Watford and Hoffenheim.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

“Having Phil not available was never cool for us but it happened,” Klopp added.

“In my first year he had the hamstring (injury). We always need to adapt. That’s how it is. Obviously you see it as good as it is until it’s s*** because it doesn’t work.

“And the reason why it doesn’t work is not too important, it’s just to find a solution. That’s what we did in the moment.

“Every team in the world would miss a creative player in whichever position of his quality. That’s not too cool but I am already used to it. You cannot find exactly the same solution. That’s how football works.

“If Phil could have had just one genius idea on the pitch that would have helped. Absolutely. That’s all. But I can’t work in my office, make a a line-up and say: ‘Ahhh! And here we miss Phil’. That’s not how it works.

“It’s a situation in the moment and we have to take it like this. In Hoffenheim with the way they play I would have loved to have involved Adam Lallana. It’s not always perfect timing and he would have changed the situation for us. When a good player is not available it’s not good.”