HIS FUTURE AT ANFIELD
JURGEN KLOPP insists he is not feeling the pressure – and then gave a tantalising hint that there are doubts over his long-term future.
The Liverpool boss takes his team to face bitter rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup today trying to get to grips with the biggest crisis of his five-year Anfield reign.
After two seasons which have seen the Reds win the Champions
League and the
Premier League and become champions of the world, three wins from 10 games in all competitions have plunged his team into a downward spiral. Klopp’s revelation after Thursday night’s 1-0 defeat by Burnley ended Liverpool’s 68-game unbeaten league record at Anfield that he has no power to sign players to ease an injury crisis appeared to be a dig at the club’s owners.
And while his message ahead of the trip to Old Trafford was one of defiance, the German admitted that it is hard for him to stay motivated over a long period of time.
Klopp, who has more than three years left on his contract, said: “No, I don’t feel the pressure from the outside.
“I deal with the pressure I put on myself my entire life so I am used to that and I know myself well enough. “It is really difficult to make me really happy in the long term with something. “Short term, I am quite easy to excite but then in the long term it is not easy.” It said much about the spot
Klopp now finds himself in that the subject of facing United for the second successive weekend was never mentioned.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side forced a goalless draw at Anfield last Sunday evening and are six points clear of the reigning champions, who have now slipped to fourth.
Klopp is still unable to explain how his team lost to Burnley after they had dominated the game.
But he also accepted that a victory would have only papered over the cracks that have started to show this season.
He said: “Losing the game against Burnley was a really low point. When I think back, I can’t find a reason why we lost – but we did lose.
“Sometimes you need a really low point to change things – and that is where we are.
“If we had won 1-0 in a really bad game it wouldn’t have helped us long term. It can become a big help if we use it.”
Klopp, 53, admits captain Jordan Henderson and senior star James Milner are more vital than ever in their current crisis – but he has no concerns over the mentality of his dressing room.
He added: “They have always been incredibly important. They have always played a really important role. But not only them.
“I can imagine what a lot of people think about us at the moment and all these kind of things.
“But people players don’t change overnight. People sometimes face challenges they are not immediately ready for. And sometimes they don’t even know the challenge will come up.
“This is a challenge we didn’t want to have. Was it absolutely impossible it could happen? No, especially in the situation we are in.
“So they are always important and they are still brilliant people and brilliant characters, all of them.
“All of them have made what has happened over the past few years possible and their personalities don’t change overnight.
“They are still a really, really, really good group, led by some of them, they are always strong.
“Do I use Jordan and Milly? I don’t have to really because they both work without remote control.
“I am not in doubt about us as a group, not at all. But these moments are when you need the group to come closer together and do the right things.”