Angry Klopp calls on Pool to get back to ruthless best
JURGEN Klopp admitted he “gets angry” when Liverpool fall short of their standards after his side’s shock defeat at Southampton
anny Ings put a dent in his former club’s Premier League title aspirations when he cleverly lobbed goalkeeper Alisson Becker to secure a 1-0 win on Monday night.
Liverpool enjoyed most of the possession at St Mary’s, but their first shot on target only came in the 75th minute as they failed to score for a second successive game.
The reigning champions remain top of the table on goal difference from Manchester United, but Klopp knows his players need to quickly find their form.
“I know they are great guys, super boys, fantastic football players, but they were not good,” the Reds boss said.
“If I think they should have done better then I get angry, not for long, but I get angry. They know that. It was always like this.
“Just because they won something in the past, doesn’t mean you are always like this.
“We don’t have to make it bigger than it is, but we haven’t won the last three games. That’s all our fault, mainly my fault, but the boys had a hand as well and we have to change that.
“If you bring yourself (into) a situation like we did, against an opponent like Southampton, then you play with fire.
“Southampton are too good for that, Premier League teams are too good for that, and we don’t score late goals because we have done it in the past.
“No, you do that because you put them under so much pressure that they cannot cope any more. Southampton were on the edge of that, but we helped them. That’s all. We were not good enough.”
Klopp was adamant striker Sadio Mane should have been awarded a clear penalty by referee Andre Marriner at St Mary’s.
Mane went down in the area just before the hour mark under the challenge of Kyle Walker-peters but Marriner waved play on and VAR did not take a second look at the incident, which the Reds boss believes was a penalty.
Klopp said: “I turned around, we had a really good view of it. It looked like a clear penalty. I turned to the fourth official, he said, ‘We checked already, no penalty’. That’s the 100% truth. They checked it already.
“We had the situation last year against Leicester with the penalty, and people say, ‘Sadio Mane goes down too easily’.
“If this boy went down easily, we could have had a penalty in this game and a stonewall penalty in the last game. But what Andre Marriner did with Sadio Mane, I’m not sure that’s okay.”
Klopp added: “We cannot change. I hear now that Man United have had more penalties in two years than I’ve had in five and a half years. I’ve no idea if that’s my fault, or how that can happen. But it’s no excuse for the performance. We cannot change it, we have to respect the decisions. But we can change our performance. That’s our focus now.”
Klopp described Liverpool’s current form as “a rather rusty moment” that the champions must overcome. “We just have to fight through this and play through this.”
Liverpool have struggled for form since their 7-0 thrashing of Crystal Palace on December 19 with draws at home to West Brom and at Newcastle falling before this defeat in Hampshire, while for Southampton it was their first win since December 13.
The win was also the first time under Ralph Hasenhuttl they had taken points off Liverpool, having lost their previous six meetings, and it clearly meant a lot to the Saints boss who appeared to be in tears shortly after the final whistle.