Mourinho claimed Klopp had to end Liverpool’s three-decade wait for the title after spending £175million this summer – £250m in 2018 with the £75m January singing of Virgil van Dijk.
But Klopp, whose Liverpool side take on Mourinho’s United in Michigan tonight, dismissed his rival’s claim as a futile attempt to pile on the pressure ahead of the new season and laughed it off.
“It doesn’t bother me,” said Klopp. “I heard he was smiling when he said it and he found it funny, so I’m really happy that Jose’s smiling – it doesn’t happen a lot of times!
“Would I speak about Jose if you didn’t ask me? Of course not. I’m not sure, but probably, Jose wouldn’t speak about me if nobody asked him.
Jurgen Klopp dismissed Jose Mourinho’s claim that Liverpool must win the Premier League (Image: GETTY)
I heard he was smiling when he said it and he found it funny, so I’m really happy that Jose’s smiling – it doesn’t happen a lot of times!
“But I couldn’t be less interested. It’s completely normal. Jose tries everything; on one side to put pressure on people and on the other he does it to improve his own situation.
“If he goes on about spending money – and I’m not the best at counting money in terms of what we’ve spent in the last few years – but I would say since we are both in England, probably he has spent a little bit more – at least net. That’s how it is. It’s not important.
“We tried to improve our own situation and hopefully we could do that. That’s it – nothing else. If our fans are now more optimistic after the last season, plus the transfers that we made, then it’s perfect.”
What both he and the fans will be hoping to do is quickly forget the Champions League final defeat. Klopp has watched it several times, and last night branded Real Madrid skipper Sergio Ramos “ruthless” and a “wrestler”.
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Ramos was involved in two controversial incidents in Liverpool’s 3-1 defeat – Mo Salah was forced out of the game with a dislocated shoulder after tussling with Ramos, who then took out keeper Loris Karius with another physical challenge.
Klopp, who had remained silent on Ramos until now, is convinced he deliberately targeted both players and accused him of being a serial offender who has got away with such brutal acts and sly antics throughout his career.
“I watched that back, of course,” said Klopp. “If you watch it back and you’re not with Real Madrid, then you think it’s ruthless and brutal. You don’t think, ‘Wow, good challenge’.
“It was ruthless. I don’t think Mo would have always got injured in that situation, and this time it was unlucky, but it’s an experience that we cannot have.
“I’m not sure if it’s an experience we’ll have again – go there and put an elbow to the goalkeeper, put their goalscorer down like a wrestler in midfield and then you win the game. That was the story of the game.
“Ramos said a lot of things that I didn’t like. As a person I didn’t like the reactions of him. He was like ‘Whatever, what do they want? It’s normal’. No, it’s not normal.
Jose Mourinho said Liverpool must win the Premier League after spending £175million this summer (Image: GETTY)
Jurgen Klopp branded Real Madrid skipper Sergio Ramos ‘ruthless’ and a ‘wrestler’ (Image: GETTY)
“If you put all of the situations of Ramos together – and I’ve watched football since I was five years old – then you will see a lot of situations with Ramos.
“In the final the year before, against Juventus, he was responsible for the red card for Juan Cuadrado. He touched him and Ramos makes a big act of it. Nobody talks about that afterwards.
“The ref should have had the courage to decide that game. It doesn’t feel right, but it is what it is, we can’t change it.
“Obviously in this situation we didn’t get it and people will say I’m weak or a bad loser or a whiner. I’m not. I accept it. It’s not like I wake up in the morning and think ‘Ramos!’ I’m fine with it.”
In the wake of the defeat, Liverpool produced a medical report claiming Karius suffered from concussion as a result of the Ramos challenge and that was a factor in the two crucial mistakes the keeper made.
Klopp knew the move would be seen by many as a desperate attempt by Liverpool to protect Karius from the criticism that came his way, but insisted there was nothing dubious about the medical report.
Liverpool bought Alisson from Roma earlier this month for £65m (Image: GETTY)
“How can we imagine that a player, who didn’t show any signs, not in the game, not before that game, that he will do these things and that it’s not influenced by the knock?” said Klopp.
“It was very important for Lorius. He thought he was 100 per cent responsible and the doc told him, ‘You’re not’. In this moment, your vision is different.
“I knew what people would think when we did it and made it public – that we were only doing it for us, that it makes no sense. But the doctor was the head of the concussion department of the NFL in Boston.
“He said it was likely Loris was influenced. Can he say for sure? Of course he can’t, but it’s likely, so that’s the word.
“We didn’t use it for one second as an excuse, but how can we not put it out as an explanation?
“The problem is that people don’t believe it, then we bring in a new goalkeeper and people think we don’t believe it as well, which isn’t true.
“If Alisson was on the market and we’d won the final, we would have gone for him, because we think he’s the goalkeeper we want.”