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Jurgen Klopp insists the Champions League final had no impact on Liverpool's decision to splash out a world record £65million fee for Alisson.

The Brazil international will take over No 1 duties from Loris Karius, who endured a nightmare in Kiev.

However, Klopp says their pursuit of Alisson wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to what happened against Real Madrid.

The ECHO understands that Liverpool had been pursuing Alisson since January but agreeing a deal with Roma had proved problematic until a major breakthrough in discussions earlier this month.

“If we had won the final and Alisson had been on the market we would have gone for him because we think he is the goalkeeper we want,” Klopp said.

“The other goalkeepers are really good, like our midfielders. It doesn't mean we tell Fabinho 'sorry, we already have good players we don't need you'.

“We bring in another one because we think we can make the next step like with Naby (Keita). We do it and it's the job.”

Klopp didn't discuss the arrival of Alisson with Karius, who said earlier this week he was considering his future after being relegated to a back-up option this season.

“Listen, I didn’t walk through the dressing room and tell people that I was signing Fabinho or Naby Keita,” he added.

“I didn’t say before the medical 'we are signing a goalkeeper' and then it’s like 'oh! (laughs).

“It’s all good. You unfortunately are more part of that world than I am, pointing the finger on things like that.

“Not stopping writing about it! It is an easy job to do. Little mistake here and then 'Ah! The Champions League final!”

An engaging interview in the team hotel in Ann Arbor, Michigan turned to that devastating night in Kiev and the subsequent revelation that Karius had been concussed when he made two calamitous mistakes.

He was struck in the head by Sergio Ramos just two minutes before his misplaced throw gifted a goal to Karim Benzema. Gareth Bale's long-range strike then slipped through his palms to seal the Reds' fate.

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“What did you think in the moment when it came out? Come on, be honest,” Klopp asked.

An excuse was the response. “Yeah but it’s not. It’s the truth,” he countered.

It was certainly a strange sequence of events. A few days after the final Klopp got a phone call from the legendary Franz Beckenbauer, who alerted him to the possibility that Karius had been concussed after speaking to renowned German doctor Hans Müller-Wohlfahrt.

After reviewing the footage closely, Karius was advised to visit specialists Dr Ross Zafonte and Dr Lenore Herget at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital.

Brain scans showed that Karius had 'visual spatial dysfunction' which can result in an inability to judge where objects are.

“Franz Beckenbeur called me, that's exactly how it was, and he started with 'your goalkeeper had concussion',” Klopp said.

“I said 'what?'. He said 'I've come from Dr Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt and he said he knew immediately in the situation that he had concussion when Ramos hit him'.

“And then it came back to me because in the game, from my position, without having replays, you see the knock and then I see the reaction of Loris, but then you look already somewhere else. Then I think 'stop, I have to watch it back'.

“How can we imagine that a player, who didn't show any signs, not in that game, not before that game, that he will do these things, that it's not influenced by the knock?

“I spoke to Mike Gordon and asked if we had any doctors, and I really thought, three days after the final, you cannot find out something like that.

“I knew already what you would all think when we did it and made it public, that we were only doing it for us.

“Mike said the head of the concussion department of the NFL is in Boston so he can fly here and he will have a look. It wasn't 'tell us what we want to hear'. He's a world-class doctor. Out of the tests, 26 of 30 said it was concussion.

“The NFL has a big problem with that. Yesterday I had a helmet in my hand. It's already four kilos and then you have someone 6ft 8ins smashing into someone. We had that problem.”

Klopp knew that critics would scoff but he believes Liverpool had a duty to Karius to release the information to explain the events of Kiev.

“Some say 'finally, Liverpool have an excuse for losing the final'. It's not like that,” he said.

“How could we keep that back? We couldn't say 'now we know it but we won't tell anyone because people will think it's an excuse'.

“It's very important for Loris. We had to protect him. At the time Loris didn't say a word but that's normal.

“When he was together with the doc he wasn't even a little bit whining. He thought he was 100% responsible. The doc told him he wasn't. He wondered why. He can't even remember what he thought in this moment.

(Image: FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images)

“His vision was different. Did it influence the first goal? For sure. Vision different - throw the ball there, oh the leg of Benzema...

“I had 50 concussions of players and I had one myself. I got a ball in the face, somebody drove me home and I slept. I didn't realise it. I had a player in my bus on the way home and he asked me two hours after the game 'who did we play and what was the result?'.

“The German national team had a situation with (Christoph) Kramer in the 2014 World Cup final. He was a World Cup winner and didn't have a ****ing clue about it!

“This doc said it was likely Lorius was influenced. Can he say for sure? Of course he can't, but it's likely, so that's the word.

"People still don't believe it, and then we bring in a new goalkeeper and people think we don't believe it as well, but that's not true."