It will interest you that Chelsea have spent more than £200m on new recruits in a summer of Stamford Bridge rebuilding, but Klopp insisted Liverpool were different from "clubs owned by countries and oligarchs".

"I was less annoyed with it, I found it more, slightly amusing, I would say," said Lampard. "Because I think when you talk about the owners of clubs, I don't think it matters what line of business they come from, we're talking about some very wealthy owners of clubs in the Premier League.

"I think with Liverpool's story - and I referenced it a lot last year, Liverpool's story - it's a fantastic story of a club over four-and-a-half, five years that Jurgen Klopp's been there that have managed to get recruitment right to a really high level.

"And the reality is probably, other than maybe Leicester, which is an incredible story, most clubs that win the Premier League in the modern day have recruited well and recruited at a high level money-wise. And you can go through the Liverpool players: Van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, Keita, Mane, Salah, incredible players, that came at a very high price.

"So Liverpool have done it, and they've done it over a period of time. What we've done is come off the back of a ban, probably tried to address the situation ourselves to help improve us.

"So I think it's par for the course, and I think we all know that there's no point in doing the maths too much because I think we know that Liverpool have spent at a high level, we know they have an incredible coach, we know they have incredible players.

"And the really smart thing Liverpool have done I think is believe in their coach, believe in their system for a number of years. So it's a great story, but it's a story that has seen money spent on players. And this summer we've spent money on players, and now the hard work has to be done."