Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp really are on a mission.

The Reds appear to be hell bent on revamping their squad in the transfer market, with the £75m signing of Virgil van Dijk already announced by the club.

The Dutchman will arrive on January 1, with £48m midfielder Naby Keita joining up with the squad in the summer from RB Leipzig.

One other name that keeps cropping up is Schalke's Leon Goretzka, with the highly-rated German midfielder in the last year of his current deal with the Bundesliga outfit.

With Emre Can likely to leave for Juventus in the summer, his countryman is viewed as the ideal man to replace him.

And it seemed as if Liverpool were in pole-position to get their man, with Goretzka free to sort out a pre-contract in January.

But, Klopp's side have been dealt a huge blow, with Marca reporting that German giants Bayern Munich have swooped in ahead of the Premier League side.

It is just typical of Die Roten to cherrypick one of the Bundesliga's most sought-after stars on a free transfer, the exact thing they did with Robert Lewandowski and Borussia Dortmund.

It means Klopp and his team will have to look elsewhere to replace Can and it may not be easy to find a suitable candidate.

Back in November, Klopp was rather coy on the possibility of Can signing a pre-contract with Juventus.

KLOPP ON CAN

“That's part of football as well,” he said.

“If it happens like this we cannot change it.

“If there is a player out there with a contract ending next summer and he's good, we would try to do the same.

“What do I do now? Say it's a big problem and say we need to sort this now? To put pressure on the player or the club would make no sense.

“We have to respect when a contract ends. If a contract ends there are two sides who could have done things differently.

“Now we've already talked too much about it. It's just a normal situation.”