Klopp: I will keep fighting
>Liverpool manager will ‘not stop trying’ to halt side’s slump >German refuses to criticise club for not buying a defender
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he will not make any excuses over the Premier League champions’ slump in form and has promised he will not stop trying to return the side to winning ways. Liverpool travel to Manchester United in the FA Cup fourth round tomorrow – the sides’ second meeting in a week.
Of all the challenges Jurgen Klopp envisioned upon becoming Liverpool manager, it is unlikely he sketched out a detailed plan for how to deal with the post-premier League victory comedown.
The most notable segment of his prematch briefing ahead of tomorrow’s FA Cup fourth-round tie against Manchester United came when he was asked if reviving the champions’ ailing title defence was more demanding than when he transformed them into contenders.
“It’s a different challenge. Whether it’s bigger or not, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not like the moment we win the league I put my feet on the desk and think, ‘that’s it’ and smoke a cigar and think, ‘well done, from now everything will work without any doing of mine’.”
The fact Klopp momentarily paused to consider his response was as revealing as his answer, and seems mildly absurd when you consider where the club stood prior to being re-established at the summit.
Five years ago this week, Liverpool were recovering from another Anfield defeat – one of only five Klopp has endured on home soil in his Premier League career. Liverpool languished in ninth having just lost 1-0 to Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United. For those in need of perspective, that was an occasion notable for Klopp sending on Steven Caulker as an emergency striker in the final moments.
With the bar set low, an upward trajectory was easier to imagine than execute. Over five seasons, progression has often seemed seamless. This is the first time in the Klopp era Liverpool have faced the possibility of a backward step.
Matching or even eclipsing the Champions League and Premier League triumphs – in this of all seasons – was always going to present a new, albeit welcome problem. What makes the current run so ominous is how many fixtures it has absorbed, the Klopp rallying cries and clear-the-air player summits failing to yield improvement.
“The last thing we are looking for are excuses,” he said. “On Thursday we had 28 shots and six on target. I heard we had 90 shots in the last four games for one goal. That’s obviously a number we don’t want to have. We will talk the things through and try it again. If we can change it immediately on Sunday, I don’t know. But we will not stop trying, I promise.”
The reaction since Burnley ended Liverpool’s 68-game home unbeaten stretch was another reminder how short the afterglow of extraordinary success can be. Lockdown and the postponed title celebrations have exacerbated that for
Liverpool. Now, halfway through a title defence which is faltering but not over, Klopp is in unfamiliar territory, fending off questions about goal droughts, confidence drains and that thorny issue which owner Fenway Sports Group must have hoped had been banished – the measured transfer strategy.
Klopp pointed out after Thursday’s 1-0 loss how the decision not to replace long-term injury absentee Virgil van Dijk was out of his hands. He clarified those comments yesterday by saying they were offered as a fact, not criticism.
“I’m not a five-year-old kid where if I don’t get what I want I start crying,” Klopp said. “I’m responsible for a big part of this football club, but there are people who are responsible for the whole thing, and
I cannot make their decision. I know they want to support us and they do.
“Now we talk about a centre-half. Yes, it would help 100 per cent. Would we score more goals with a centre-half? I’m not sure. Would it give us a little bit more stability in specific moments? Probably yes.
“But never, ever have we spoken in or around a transfer window like this about it because that would be an excuse and we don’t need that.
“What we have to do is improve the football in a decisive area with this squad. That’s my job, not sitting here being disappointed or frustrated with some decisions. I’m not.
“We discuss the situation on a daily basis, we think about, ‘could we improve something or not?’ and I make recommendations. But I cannot spend the money. I don’t make these decisions, and I never did.”
The longer Liverpool drop off the pace, the more likely it is Klopp will have to answer for the owners’ decision to wait rather than replace their stricken centre-backs.
Evidently, Liverpool do not believe there is anyone out there who is good enough, affordable and available. Whether Klopp agrees or not, he places the onus on himself and his players to get out of their rut.
“We are very self-critical. We know what we did and we have to change it as well,” he said. “We could have played better and made better decisions, that’s what we expect from ourselves.
“That means we can change that. We believe 100 per cent we can change that with this squad.”
Meeting United again so soon may be a curse or a blessing, lifting or worsening the mood by tomorrow night. Unsurprisingly, Klopp will choose a strong line-up.
The immediate schedule is unforgiving. After Old Trafford, Liverpool head to Tottenham Hotspur and then West Ham. Leicester, Manchester City, RB Leipzig and Everton also loom in the next four weeks. A season is full of junctures, but if they want to keep grip of that title, this is surely Liverpool’s most critical.
‘What we have to do is improve the football in a decisive area with this squad. That’s my job’