TOUGH AT THE KLOPP
Three defeats in a week but Liverpool boss comes out fighting: ‘We’ve actually played a very good Premier League season with a lot to go for’
IT took a while but Jurgen Klopp eventually came out fighting.
The trademark animation had been missing, the good-humoured aggression absent but Klopp was finally back on the front foot.
How was he coping with the toughest spell of his Liverpool career and the scrutiny and doubts that have come with it?
“We lost the last three games and I don’t want to ignore that but I can’t put it each morning in my back-pack and say it’s still here. It has to be gone, it’s over,” said the German.
“We’ve actually played a very good Premier League season – not the best of all the teams – but it is still a very good season with a lot to go for.”
Klopp is being disingenuous when he refers to the last three games.
This is a deeper rut, a solitary win in eight January fixtures, the scruffy victory at lowly Plymouth. A collision with a Chelsea team that have become spiky rivals over recent years presents the perfect chance to snap out of it and lift spirits in an instant.
He admitted: “We haven’t given the crowd a lot to celebrate over the last few games but now is another chance.
“And it is the right game, a floodlit game at Anfield. It should be an outstanding atmosphere for a game against the outstanding side in the Premier League at this moment.” But even though he was happy to acknowledge a Liverpool win would open up the title race, it is noticeable Klopp’s clear, short-term ambitions now appear less grand.
They are certainly less grand than when he wondered how “annoying” it must have been for Chelsea to win 13 games on the spin and still find Liverpool only six points adrift on New Year’s Day.
Since then, Liverpool have taken two points from three matches and now trail Chelsea by 10. It is no wonder, or no coincidence, Klopp is now talking primarily in terms of a Champions League place and reminding fans that his empire will take time to build.
He said: “As long as we really believe in a long-term project while winning anything we can get in the short term, that’s what matters.
“The main thing is to come into the position where we are the team.
“At the moment, we are one of
a few, which is better than being none of them. So we can go for a real high position at the end of the league season.
“Is it allowed to celebrate a position like this in this strong league with the outstanding run of Chelsea so far?”
While Klopp remains outwardly bullish, there was also a distinct trace of defensiveness as he prepared for a match that could see him become the first Liverpool manager in almost a century to lose four consecutive games at Anfield.
This on top of the two cup exits.
He even went a touch Jose Mourinho by bemoaning a couple of key decisions he thought his side did not get against Manchester United and in the defeat to Wolves. But Klopp’s overriding message was that while the pressure mounts, his optimism, his enthusiasm, his belief remains.
He said: “It’s really not nice but, from my side, I love driving to Melwood in the morning, I love working with the players even when it’s difficult because part of this game, even though nobody around Liverpool wants to hear it, is losing.
“You have to use the bad moments to prepare for the good moments – even when you have too many bad moments.
“If you lose you have to go for the next game. Nobody wins every game in their life.”
True. But, right now, just one would do for the man who, not long ago, could do no wrong.