Jurgen Klopp surprised with the plaudits coming his way after Liverool signed Naby Keita

Jurgen Klopp was surprised with the amount of praise he received after Liverpool confirmed the signing of Red Bull Leipzig midfielder Naby Keita.

The Merseyside club were on the trail of the Guinea midfielder since the start of the summer, but the Bundesliga club had rejected a number of offers as they were adamant that he was not for sale this summer.

Keita had a £48m ($62m) release clause inserted into his contract, but it was expected to be active only next summer. Liverpool, however, were able to avoid losing the midfielder to another club next year and activated the release clause this summer by paying Leipzig a premium on the original fee.

The 22-year-old will spend the current campaign in Germany before joining his new employers next summer. Klopp was delighted to have finalised the capture of Keita, who was nominated as the midfielder of the season last campaign, while also winning the young player of the year in the Bundesliga.

The German coach admitted that he was surprised at the plaudits he received from people he has known since his time in the Bundesliga, but admits that it was only because everyone is aware about the quality of the player the Reds signed.

"I have contact to a lot of people in the Bundesliga, as you can imagine, and I have never had so many congratulations messages as I had after signing Naby," Klopp was quoted as saying in the Liverpool Echo.

"He's the player of the league, that's how it is. Last year, together with Thiago Alcantara who played an outstanding season for Bayern, he was the flier.

"He's been doing this for two or three years, with different clubs in different leagues, but he's still a young boy," the German coach explained.

"It's really good news. OK, we have to wait but sometimes we have to wait for a really good thing. I have no problem with this. I would have preferred, of course, another situation, but it's cool!" he added with regards to Keita only joining next summer.