Jurgen Klopp's refusal to gamble on Alex Teixeira will pay off for Liverpool

With the news that Pep Guardiola is on his way to Manchester City, Jurgen Klopp's status as English football's newest toy is lost at a stroke. You sense the Liverpool manager isn't too sorry to shake off that box-fresh smell, as he set about throwing the Fourth Estate further off the scent, in order to go about his own business in peace and quiet.

"When Guardiola is here it will be a very warm welcome like I had when I came here," Klopp predicted, knowing full well the press pack will oppressively swarm the new man on his arrival anyway, scarcely giving him space to breathe, never mind work, but putting the idea out there just to make sure.

City's coup has given fans of rival clubs pause for thought. Cast a glance at Twitter, and you'll not be scrolling down long before you find Arsenal and Chelsea supporters bemoaning an opportunity missed, Manchester United supporters pleading for the arrival of Jose Mourinho, and just about everyone else wondering what state English football will be in once Guardiola has burned his way through a reported £150m welcome kitty, perhaps having enticed one or two of his old Barcelona and Bayern star names to town.

Liverpool fans could afford to be a little more circumspect. Of English football's traditional giants, only Liverpool and Spurs seem truly content with their manager right now. So instead - football supporters only finding true happiness when there's something to worry about - their fans fretted over the closure of the transfer window instead. In Tottenham's case, the failure to land a back-up striker should something happen to Harry Kane. In Liverpool's case, the failure to land Alex Teixeira of Shakhtar Donetsk.

But it's almost certainly to Liverpool's advantage in the long run that things have panned out this way. The club has a better record than many in the January window - Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho have arrived at Anfield during recent winters - and Teixeira would have been a promising addition to that list.

But Liverpool have given off the stench of desperation in the transfer market for far too long now. In recent years, this has led to them being taken for some wild rides: Andy Carroll (£35m), Adam Lallana (£25m), Dejan Lovren (£20m), Lazar Markovic (£19.8m), Stewart Downing (£18.5m), Jordan Henderson (£16m), Mario Balotelli (£16m), Joe Allen (£15m), Fabio Borini (£10.4m).

Which is not to argue that all of those signings have been duds or disasters. One of them is now the club captain. Lallana, Lovren and Allen are all showing steady if unspectacular signs of improvement. Markovic could yet return and deliver on his potential under the new manager. But not a single one of those deals carries the hallmark of fiscal responsibility. Moneyballs.

Promising, then, that Klopp is strongly rumoured to be the man who put a stop to the Teixeira negotiations, with the Liverpool transfer committee reluctantly prepared to sanction a revised £38m bid. While those behind-the-scenes machinations remain a matter of speculation and conjecture, it was clear in plain sight from Klopp's subsequent statement - and indeed his general demeanour - that he's quite content to sit tight for the summer, rather than being rinsed of precious transfer funds in order to satisfy nebulous demands for a show of ambition.

Facing the media looking very relaxed - and if he is simmering inside, then for goodness sake never play poker with the man - Klopp smiled: "We made offers. I won’t say too much about that, but they were realistic, absolutely, with the pluses of it being January, the Premier League, all the pluses you have when you make negotiations with other clubs. But it was a case of ‘if you don’t want it, OK, we can’t change the situation, do what you want’. It’s important for now and for the future. It’s not that we haven’t got money or anything, but you have to work respectfully and responsibly."

This approach will stand Liverpool in good stead come the summer. It's also further proof that for all Klopp's entertaining manic episodes on the touchline, away from it he acts with cool precision. Refusing to press the panic button in January augurs well, for there's really no need.

For the want of a nail, the kingdom was lost, runs the counter argument, and if over-paying on Teixeira now guaranteed Champions League football next year, then it would be worth the gamble. But what a gamble it would be. Firstly, there are no such guarantees, especially with Spurs and Leicester enjoying the twin advantages of more points and, quite frankly, better balanced squads. An air of desperation would still inform Liverpool's future transfer dealings. And in any case, the effect of winning that precious Champions League place is somewhat overstated. Liverpool only need to look back to the shambolic summer of 2014, when as a Champions League club they said goodbye to Suarez, took a risky punt on Balotelli having failed to attract any better bets, and subsequently lost all momentum, to realise that. No, there are no guarantees.

In any case, would the Champions League be too much, too soon, as it arguably was for Brendan Rodgers, who can trace his demise back to that summer? And are the types of player Klopp has a track record of identifying - up-and-coming, ready-to-bloom talent - the kind who will consider a year or two out of the Champions League as a non-negotiable deal-breaker? Almost certainly not, if Klopp's unruffled manner is anything to go by.

"We’re in the middle of the season, I have been here for four months and nothing has happened on transfers," he says. "I am fine with that. We can go on working." Good news for the likes of Allen, Lovren and Christian Benteke who now have an extra four months to state their case. Good news for youngsters like Cameron Brannagan, Kevin Stewart, Sheyi Ojo and Joao Teixeira, who may get a few more opportunities to break through. And good news for Liverpool's negotiators, who now have a little leverage in the close season, and may find it easier to strike a few deals becoming a club of this stature. Klopp's serenity now could pay dividends later.