Jürgen Klopp: I saw good things but we need belief
Jürgen Klopp saw positives in Liverpool's performance against Chelsea but felt more belief would have prevented his side from suffering a 1-0 defeat.
The Reds were beaten for the first time this summer in the International Champions Cup clash in California, with Gary Cahill’s 10th-minute goal the difference.
Roberto Firmino had a goal disallowed before the interval and Klopp’s charges dominated after Cesc Fabregas was sent off with a quarter of the contest left to play.
But they could not restore parity at the Rose Bowl, leaving the manager pleased with elements of the display but disappointed by the final result.
Read on for his post-match verdict.
On the intensity in the game...
It was normal intensity with a few hard challenges, that’s how it is. All of the players are not in 100 per cent shape so are sometimes a little bit late in the challenges, that’s how it is. The ref thought from the beginning he should show early yellow cards. I don’t think it was too hard. It was far away from a friendly game and that’s OK, that’s why we are here.
On the red card…
It’s a red card. He came by us in the dressing room and said sorry. He came too late in the challenge, of course. Sometimes in life if you are too late you get a red card, especially in football. That’s how it was. About the game, when a team with the quality of Chelsea defends so deep then every team in the world will have a little problem. And we had the problem that 80 per cent of our passing game was absolutely OK, 20 per cent not. And this 20 per cent, most of the time, was the last pass. The last pass is a very important pass. So we had a long way to go back to defend and not create real chances. We had to run a lot to avoid this. We had to play football and we had more ball possession against a really good side. We could have scored, we didn’t – 1-0, that’s what we have to accept.
On what Liverpool needed to do to get the draw…
First of all, I would say a little bit more freshness but that’s only with the finishing. For the last pass there were two things – a little bit fresher legs would help against a deep formation and the other thing is again more belief in our skills because we are able to play really good football. We had a lot of good movements. I saw a lot of really good individual situations and team tactics, really good moments offensively and defensively. It was OK, we could have done better, but for the moment I am not dissatisfied. It is OK, not more.
On individual performances…
Sadio Mane is a wonderful player, that’s clear, but he can play much better than he did. He was good today in a lot of situations. As I said, I saw a lot of these things – individual quality. You can talk about Phil Coutinho if you want for 15 minutes in a row, that is no problem. We will find always very good moments. Roberto Firmino until now has played a fantastic pre-season, but today it was not the most wonderful day for him, but he is a great player too. You can talk, but it’s more about the team play that I want to see because I’ve said it once or twice in this pre-season, when we trust only our individual skills then you can win some games, no doubt, but we have to think about how we can involve all of these individual skills in team play. I saw a few of these things – I saw desire, greed, all that stuff. We wanted to get the draw, we wanted to win, we were in the game until the last second – that was all good. But we lost and we should not ignore that completely, even when it’s not a Premier League game. I would rather lose today than in the Premier League, of course, but we were only here to win the game. We are little bit disappointed about the result, but from the performance I can take a lot of good things.
On the fans in California…
It was a wonderful atmosphere, to be honest. I think they all enjoyed it. The weather was good – maybe the biggest surprise for a Liverpool game! We did our best, we tried really to show them that we are not only here for a little bit of ball dancing or whatever. We tried everything. The atmosphere was good in the stadium, it was nice to see before the game, driving through the crowd, it was really good. I hope they all had a good time.