Jurgen Klopp admits Liverpool's squad rebuild will not happen "overnight" as they lack the funds of some of their Premier League rivals to facilitate a quick turnaround.
And the Reds boss has indicated he signed a new five-year contract last April because of the need to oversee what he termed the following month as a "transformation" in his first team.
Liverpool have struggled to find form this season with the integration of new signings such as potential £85million man Darwin Nunez hampered by a string of injury to key players.
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And Klopp has suggested the short-term pain is a possible price to pay for what he regards a long-term project in building a new team.
"I’m not saying it’s the biggest challenge, but it’s a challenge, and it was one of the main reasons why I signed a new contract because I knew it’s necessary,” said the Liverpool boss.
“It will not go overnight, and imagine the situation now with another coach in the chair. I would be somewhere on holiday and everybody would shout my name ‘with him it would not have happened!’
"I’m obviously not a miracle worker. That’s why it’s good how it is, because all the problems you have in a transition time period, we have an awful lot of injuries, and that makes life really complicated. I have no problem with that because I see obviously... I know the majority of the outside world is just interested in the short term but we have to be long-term focused as well, and that’s what we are."
Liverpool have committed to spending more than £230million during the last 18 months, with Ibrahima Konate, Luis Diaz and January arrival Cody Gakpo among those recruited. The Reds could ultimately recoup around half of that through sales during the same period.
By contrast, Chelsea have a net spend of £350m in a similar timeframe with more than £125m being splashed out so far this month alone. Since June 2021, Manchester United have a net spend of almost £300m, Arsenal £250m, Tottenham Hotspur in excess of £160m, while Manchester City have a transfer fee deficit of only £30m.
And Klopp, speaking to the BT Sport podcast Michael Calvin's Football People, has acknowledged Liverpool have to change the squad in their own way.
"There are obviously plenty of different ways you can do it, but it’s all based on the situation you are in, especially with the things happening around," he said.
"Chelsea with the new ownership obviously, nobody knows exactly how they do it, how they can spend this much money. Other teams, nobody likes me talking about that... but transition needs time if you don’t have endless money, otherwise you can change overnight pretty much, bringing in 10 players.
"Last week I got a question if I am too loyal, I’m not too loyal but questioning loyalty in general is a sign of our time, the time we are living in as well, which I really don’t like too much. I never saw anything bad in loyalty, to be honest, to your friends, to your family, to your company, in an ideal world you are loyal, and it’s not a one-way word. That’s an ideal world when both sides feel the same and big things can grow.
"When it's not going well I feel 100% responsible. If you are really responsible for something, then you go out for it. To put it right is the main thing that drives me."
Klopp will have spent 11 years at Anfield should he continue through to the end of his present deal. The Liverpool boss, though, has no intention of following the likes of Roy Hodgson by still being in the dugout in his 70s.
"I know I dream of football, so that’s not cool… the job is incredibly demanding, it is, but it’s great as well," he said. "So that’s why I say when Roy Hodgson came back again, when he came in, I saw him and ask him ‘do you have a wet flat? You go again?’ and he says ‘no, I love it’ so I cannot see myself beyond 70 and still standing on the dugout each weather, and especially each weather for training, one and a half, two hours, standing there in the wind. I can’t see that.
"But I understand a little bit where they are coming from and I hope other things are that interesting to me that I am really fine with not being involved any more."
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