Work in progress
Liverpool’s ‘brilliant’ 2019 just a building block for Klopp
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists the European champions must build on a “brilliant” 2019 to turn a 13-point lead at the top of the table into a first Premier League title in 30 years.
Klopp’s men were not at their flowing best and needed the help of two VAR reviews to continue their relentless march towards the title with a 1-0 win over Wolves on Sunday.
Liverpool have now won 18 of their first 19 league games of the season and lost just once in the calendar year in the league, on top of winning the Champions League, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup.
“2019 was brilliant but it’s not important because we count seasons, not years, so the 2019-20 season is not over,” said Klopp.
“We are halfway there, we still have 19 games to play and probably 18 or 19 of them will be like this tonight, for different reasons.
“Who cares about points in December? We just created a basis which we will work with from now on, that’s all.”
The visitors had lost just once in their previous 14 league games to move into contention for a top-four finish and they did not go down without a fight in the final stages.
“If it would be easy to win that number of games a lot more teams would have done it,” added Klopp.
“It is not easy and you have to fight with all you have.
“Sometimes we have more and sometimes less and the boys do that all the time, so I couldn’t be more proud of what they did again. To get that result over the line is just impressive.”
However, the lengthy VAR reviews irked the German.
“Players standing around that long is not good,” said Klopp. “I’d prefer if referees went to the screen because it’s directly next to us and never used, I don’t know exactly why.
“If it’s a tight offside with a small margin ... then I can understand it, but with the possible handball, I don’t understand it.
“It would have gone quicker (by going to the screen), but that’s how we do it in England and we cannot change that.” — Agencies