Jurgen Klopp's response was emphatic. It had to be.
After one of the most anticipated press conferences of the German's eight-year stay on Merseyside, Liverpool's ended pursuit of England and Borussia Dortmund sensation Jude Bellingham was finally confirmed straight from the horse's mouth.
In place at the AXA Training Centre, Klopp swiftly confirmed the Reds' cooled interest in the midfielder, reaching for an analogy of a 'five-year-old' and a 'Ferrari'.
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Klopp said: "We cannot have six players [and] everyone is for £100 million. That’s kind of clear. You have to realise what you can do and then have to work with that. How much money we have available and then you have to work with that
"We are not children asking a five-year-old what they want for Christmas and they tell you: ‘I want a Ferrari’. You wouldn’t say that’s a good idea, you’d say it’s too expensive and anyway you cannot drive it. If this kid spent his whole life because he cannot get a Ferrari then it would be a sad life.
"It’s just what you can do and then you do it and work with that. Nothing else to say. That’s always how I work. What we need and what we want, we’ll try absolutely everything to get it but there are moments that you have to accept these are not possible for us, step aside and do different stuff."
As a result, heading into the off-season, Liverpool - uncertain of which European competition, if any, they'll be competing in next season - are tasked with drawing up plans for one of the most significant rebuilds in the club's 131-year history.
The forthcoming departures of Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who are both out of contract at the end of the current season, as well as questions around Fabinho and Jordan Henderson's form, suggests there will be plenty of movement in the Reds' engine room during summer months.
Of course, for such a long time, nearly two years in fact, Bellingham had been expected to become the face of the highly-anticipated 2023 summer rebuild. But now, however, for Liverpool and perhaps the 19-year-old too, a summer that promised to carry so much excitement is in serious danger of delivering a severely underwhelming outcome.
On Friday, Klopp likened the Reds' yearning for the former Birmingham City scholar to a five-year-old demanding a Ferrari from their parents at Christmas; seemingly implying that Liverpool's pursuit of Bellingham is a luxurious addition that is out of reach and may not be necessary at Anfield.
In isolation, that remains a valid assessment of the ongoing issues with the aforementioned individual slumps and rising age profiles of Klopp's current options suggesting that Bellingham's signature alone would not be sufficient in hurling the Reds back into the upper echelons of both the English and European game.
But unlike a five-year-old's evident lack of need for a lavish super car, Liverpool find themselves in desperate need of superstar reinforcements. A failure to do so in the summer of 2022 when Aurelien Tchouameni snubbed a move to Anfield in favour of becoming Real Madrid's latest Galactico and the lack of alternatives that were later pursued has left Liverpool and Klopp with an enormous repair on their hands.
It means that after Kopites were made to wave goodbye to any ounce of success in either the Champions League or Premier League this term, those at Anfield now run the risk of encountering a similar fate next campaign as they are set for life without Bellingham -or more worryingly a player of his class.
At this stage, it is understandably too premature to start finger-pointing at those at Anfield, with the morning after the transfer window has slammed shut on September 1 perhaps a more appropriate time to do so. But one thing that is for certain is that, unlike a parent's response to their child's outlandish, last-gasp December wishes, Liverpool have had ample time to brace themselves for Borussia Dortmund's eye-watering valuation.
The ECHO understands that a fee in the region of £80m was believed to have been sufficient enough prior to Bellingham's impressive performances for England at last winter's World Cup. While the British record fee Chelsea parted with for the signing of Enzo Fernandez earlier this year almost certainly would have altered the Bundesliga hopeful's quotation of the Englishman.
Given that Liverpool's first engagement with the Bellinghams dates back to the midfielder taking part in a two-day trial at the club's Kirkby Academy in 2012, the idea that his exponential development and subsequent elevation into one of European football's most coveted midfielders in the last six months has priced the Klopp's side out of a deal doesn't quite cut it.
Clearly, it goes without saying, if Liverpool are able to utilise their Bellingham-designated banknotes to lure a string of Premier League and Champions League-proven additions, the optimism at Anfield will no doubt shift ahead of the new season.
But, as it stands, with the craving for additions at an all-time high and the trust between the club and supporters in need of work with a crucial window approaching, Klopp's latest roll of the dice could prove to be his most dangerous yet.
If the lows of this disastrous campaign on the red half of Merseyside have yielded any lessons at all, it would be that the failure to land a champion midfielder in the wake of Tchouameni's snubbing has undoubtedly stifled Liverpool this term.
Such a mistake cannot be repeated this summer.
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