Klopp urges players not to see defeat as ‘catastrophe’
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has urged his players not to view the defeat to Manchester City as a "catastrophe" as he believes some of the football they played would have served them well in this inconsistent season.
The lopsided look of a 4-1 scoreline was due to two uncharacteristic errors by goalkeeper Alisson Becker but Klopp was keen to take the positives from a performance which left them 10 points behind the leaders with their Premier League title defence seemingly in tatters.
"I don't like it too much but ithappenedfromtimetotime, if you are then at home we all think our own stuff, we think, 'Oh my God, it's a catastrophe'.
"There are worse things in theworldthanlosingafootball game. For us, it is very important, no doubt about that.
"But I want them to understand and to know the football we played in long periods of the game, if we would have played this football more often then we would have more points."
Klopp's immediate concern now must be to stave off the challenge for their topfour place which is likely to come from Chelsea and West Ham,apointbehind,Everton, threebehindwithtwomatches in hand – albeit one against City–andTottenham,whoare four back.
ItisnotthewayLiverpool's first title defence in 30 years
wasexpectedtogobutKloppis trying to remain upbeat.
"Really, criticism is always likethis.Somebodycantellme whatever went wrong, stuff like this, I know the things probably before already so that's not a problem. We take that," he added.
"But it is not the last game of the season so there are a lot of games to come. If we would have played more often as we played(againstCity),wewould not be 10 points behind City but it is not a dreamland or whatever.
"We have to accept the reality
and we do that. We will fight, we will fight for results. We did that (against City)."
Part of Klopp's problem is a number of players are operating well below levels of the previous two seasons.
Two of his front three in Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino
are not delivering the goals or assists expected of them, his flying full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson have had theirwingsclippedanddefensive disruption has seen fewercleansheetsandchangesin midfield.