WE’LL BE BACK
Klopp has no fear history is repeating
LIVERPOOL V FULHAM
2PM TOMORROW, SKY SPORTS
IT WAS unthinkable when Liverpool were top of the Premier League at Christmas that they might finish outside the top four.
After winning the title so emphatically last season, Jurgen Klopp’s side were talked of as all-time greats, as a team who could create a dynasty every bit as dominant as the Anfield legends of the Seventies and Eighties.
Just over two months later though, Klopp accepts that the catastrophic consequences of being exiled from Europe’s Champions League elite is a real possibility now.
But he said: “This club will not be a regular out of the Champions League.
“This year is difficult we know that. But this club is in a really good position, in a better position than other clubs. Nobody has to worry about the future of the club because it is in good hands.”
Liverpool have lost five league games in a row at Anfield for the first time and defeat tomorrow would surely signal the end of their top-four ambitions this season.
Klopp was reminded of the last time that happened regularly, starting back in the dying embers of the Rafa Benitez era, when Liverpool dropped out of elite European football and the club almost went bankrupt.
They were saved only by legal action against then owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett and buy-out coup by John Henry and Tom Werner. Klopp knows there are huge financial implications for missing out on the Champions League but he is adamant the events of a decade ago will not be repeated.
He said: “We all understand this situation. The main reason for qualifying for the Champions League is finances.
“The potential and the power of the club is a completely different one. We have the squad together, if they are not all injured. It is a different one to 10 years ago.
“We are ready for a battle in this era. It will not be an issue with new players.”
Klopp believes the squad that has struggled so desperately this campaign will be just as desperate to fix the problem next season.
And he is confident nobody will jump ship if there is no Champions League football.
“That will not happen,” he said. “I know them well enough to know that.”
Klopp has more pressing problems – he has another centre-half injured, with new signing Ozan Kabak picking up a knock against Chelsea, but Nat Phillips should be fit.