KLOPP: WE FIGHT TO FINISH FOR OUR FANS
JURGEN KLOPP says Liverpool won’t give up in the Premier League to concentrate on Champions League success – because they owe it to their fans. Despite trailing leaders Manchester City by 22 points and facing a battle to finish in the top four, the Kop boss says Liverpool’s responsibility to their fans means they can never throw in the towel.
And even though they have one foot in the Champions League quarterfinals after a 2-0 round of 16 away win against RB Leipzig, Klopp won’t target Europe at the expense of the league.
“We play Fulham next then three days later Leipzig and we are not in the next round yet,” he says.
“So I can’t think of winning the Champions League in the sense that we still have to go through difficult rounds, and this round is still difficult too.
“I don’t think that far ahead.we will see who we can field against Fulham and see who we can bring on for the Leipzig game.
“But it’s not because we have given up on the Premier League
“That will never happen. Liverpool is too big and too many people are interested.
“We don’t play behind closed doors really without cameras so you just read the results in the news.
“We play in front of our people and we feel the responsibility.
“We feel that in each game that we have to give our absolute everything to win it. And when that doesn’t happen we try it again the next time.”
Before he joined Liverpool, Klopp’s last season at Borussia Dortmund was filled with problems as the German side slumped to a seventh place finish after finishing second the previous season.
But Klopp insists the crisis at Anfield this season is way worse than his troubled swansong with Dortmund.
“I had a situation at Dortmund after a very successful spell but it’s not even close.at Dortmund, it was not even half as bad, from an injury point of view, as it is here now.
“And we had much less points after the first part of the season.the difference was we had the injuries in the first part of the season, but in the second part they all came back.
“We had a winter break and I knew when we came back all the injured players would be back so it’s completely different situation because pretty much nobody comes back here, so you can’t compare it.
“You have to find solutions.the only thing we can do now is to work as hard as we can, fight as much as we can and play as good as we can.’’