Liverpool head coach Arne Slot finally opened up on the Martin Zubimendi rumours, saying that the Spaniard decided not to come to the club.
Zubimendi, 25, emerged as one of the best defensive midfielders recently and was also targeted by FC Barcelona in the past. Liverpool saw the Spaniard as the top contender to fix their midfield issues but he decided against moving to the Merseyside club.
"I've said many times already that our squad is really strong and it's not so easy to find players who can help us or improve the squad," Dutchman Slot told reporters ahead of his team's Premier League opener at Ipswich on Saturday.
"Zubimendi was one of them to be fair, but he decided not to come. We go forward with the ones we have. (Wataru) Endo did well in pre-season.
"We're in a good place. Richard (Hughes, Liverpool's sporting director) is trying to strengthen the squad. Zubimendi decided not to come, we did every effort. If a player decides not to come then it's obvious he's not coming."
Liverpool finished third last season behind Arsenal and Manchester City and Slot believes that the Reds could challenge for the title this season despite not making signings.
"That argument I don't understand -- if you don't strengthen the team you become weaker," said Slot.
"That's a bit weird because normally you would either stay the same -- and I truly believe that (on) the training ground you can help players and the teams to improve, and that is also what happened here in the recent years, that the training ground really helped the team to improve.
"If you keep bringing players in sometimes the energy in the group goes down as well."
