KLOPP CUTS LOOSE

Liverpool boss hits out at all and sundry as Reds stride on with win

LIVERPOOL manager Jurgen Klopp savaged plans to add more games to the group stages of the Champions League and mocked the organisation of the Club World Cup as his table-toppers accelerated into a hectic holiday schedule with victory over Watford.

Klopp and his side fly to Qatar today to take part in the Club World Cup and will play their first match on Wednesday, the day after a shadow team plays Aston Villa at Anfield in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup.

Klopp attacked the idea floated yesterday morning that some of England’s big clubs were party to a plan to add four more games to the group stages from 2024-25.

He said. ‘You all like watching us suffering. That is how it is.

‘You look a bit concerned but in the end nobody cares really. We have to deal with it. We speak about it, nobody else speaks about it and then when you discuss it, it’s like I don’t know exactly what they want.

‘Today, I read an article that the top clubs want to do more games in the Champions League or whatever and I’m not involved in these plans. That’s absolute b ****** s as well.

‘We can talk about everything this week but we have to cut off games not put more in.

‘But until then we have to do what we do. We will do that and we are quite positive about it but it’s clear we need each point we can get because it’s tough and long season. You can make early judgments but we can’t, we just have to recover for the next game.’

Hit by an injury yesterday to Gini Wijnaldum and already coping with the absences of Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip, Klopp admitted that his squad is starting to feel the effects of the intensity of the season.

He also made it plain he was annoyed that the matches in the latter stages of the tournament in Qatar would all now be played at the Khalifa International Stadium after attempts to get the Education City Stadium ready in time were called off at the last minute.

‘I think it’s raining there, which doesn’t help the pitch,’ said Klopp, after Liverpool had extended their unbeaten start to the league season to 17 games and their lead over Leicester City to 10 points with victory over Nigel Pearson’s basement team. ‘And it is the one pitch we are all playing on, which is sensationally good organisation.

‘And where all the games are on one pitch and it’s raining. I’m not sure if people in Qatar are used to a lot of rain. We will see how the pitch will be. That’s a bit of a problem. But if we wouldn’t go to Qatar now, we would play midweek against Aston Villa, then West Ham, right?

‘The only difference is that we fly seven-and-a-half hours. But that’s normal.’

When Liverpool kicked off against Watford, Anfield was still agog with the news that Klopp had signed a new extended contract that will keep him at the club until 2024, reassuring fans that the glories the German boss has restored to the red half of Merseyside will not melt away again just as their hegemony in English football appears to have been re-established.

It is only mid-December but this sketchy victory over the Premier League’s bottom club took them 17 points clear of the champions, Manchester City. Leicester City are their nearest challengers.

Neither of their pursuers should be discounted but it is already clear this represents by far Liverpool’s best chance of winning their first title for 30 years.

This was a long way from being their most fluent performance of what has been a remarkable first half of the season. It was their 16th victory in 17 unbeaten matches this campaign and their eighth league win in succession, but it may also have been their least convincing.

‘We need each point we can get because it is a tough and long season,’ said Klopp. ‘We just have to recover and play the next game.’

Watford have won 15 fewer games than Liverpool since the season began but their new manager, Pearson, would have been entitled to feel aggrieved that they did not collect three points here in his first match in charge.

Watford, who started the day six points adrift of safety, missed chance after chance. There were glaring mishits in front of goal, fluffed one-on-ones with the goalkeeper, Gerard Deulofeu hit the post with a corner and Virgil van Dijk even got in on the act by wrong-footing Alisson with a backpass and nearly diverting the ball into the net.

Watford missed all those chances and Liverpool, who are now 40 points ahead of Pearson’s side, took advantage. Mo Salah put them ahead before half-time with a sublime finish after a lightning counter-attack but it was not until two minutes from the end that the Egypt forward made the game safe with a cheeky flick that went through the legs of Christian Kabasele on the line.

If Watford had been more adept in front of goal, though, this might easily have been a different story.

Boss Pearson said: ‘I think we put them under strain and caused them problems but they have unbelievable players. I have seen more positives than negatives