Jürgen Klopp: We'll accept defeat and play better next time
Jürgen Klopp addressed the media after a much-changed Liverpool team suffered a 3-1 defeat to Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium on Sunday - read on for a full transcript of his post-match press conference.
On Liverpool’s performance after making eight changes…
The performance was completely different [to Villarreal] that’s clear. We don’t have to compare these games, it was different. We didn’t play as good as we could, that’s for sure. Our performance was not as a good as possible. With this line-up, we tried to bring fresh legs, fresh mind – that’s what we’ve always tried in the last few weeks in the third game in a week. I’m only disappointed or frustrated because I know we could have played better. It’s not too important now but everybody saw if we’d have played a little bit better, a little bit closer to our 100 per cent, then it would have been a completely different game. The first two goals were too easy, too simple for Swansea. In the end, we deserved the defeat and they deserved the win, but a big, big part of this result was our performance. We have to accept this, recover, prepare again and play much better.
On learning from today’s result and performance…
I can’t change my mind every two days like you can [about the strength of the squad]. After Bournemouth, after Stoke, after these games, everybody said ‘oh my God, how good are these young players?’ They are good, but that is how it is – life as a professional football player is not always a honeymoon. You have to prove, you have to deliver. Today it did not work too well, but it is not a problem for the future, it is only a problem for today. A result or a game like this would only be completely senseless if you do not use the information for the future – and that’s what we will do for sure. We know we have to improve, the players have to improve – we know this and we knew it before - but even in this moment we could have played better. It’s not about the squad or something, it’s only about the performance today.
On Pedro Chirivella’s league debut for Liverpool…
He is a wonderful player. He is a passing player and a big, big talent. Today he forgot to orientate himself a little bit – that’s usually his strength, knowing what’s around him. He is a really cool and calm with the ball, but today it was not a game for [this]. Usually it could have been a game [for it], but it’s only one game in his long, long football career, so that’s not a problem. For today, it was not too easy for him.
On Daniel Sturridge playing for 90 minutes…
I spoke to him at half-time. We’d already made two changes, so if he felt something he should give me a sign but he said ‘no, I want to play the 90 minutes’ It’s absolutely no problem. He didn’t play on Thursday, so now we have four or five days until Thursday again, so everything is good.
On the priority for the rest of the season…
Now, in this moment, from now on it’s the Europa League – and then next Sunday it will be the Premier League. What can I say? Do you think we say ‘let’s put everything in this game’ and then ignore the rest of the games? That’s not how it can work. Life is like it is. We played really well with different line-ups in the last few games. Today we didn’t. That’s less surprising than the good games we played, to be honest, with 10 changes or things like this. I’m used to accepting not 100 per cent performances and that’s what it was today. I’m disappointed, yes, because I think we could have won this game with a normal performance, but obviously we were not able to. That’s what we have to think about and not more. Now we will prepare for the second leg in the Europa League and we will see what happens. Then another minimum three games in the Premier League and hopefully another game in the Europa League. That’s how it is.
On the week ahead and the team’s development…
One week ago we played a draw against Newcastle. It was a very, very good first half and a not-so-good second half or start of the second half. Then again a good game after a lot of games before, 16 or 17 games more than Newcastle. The lads did really well. So I’m happy with our development but not today. That’s how it is. I’m not the type of guy to change his mind every day. Everything is okay but we have to deliver, that’s what we know. We have a long way to go for sure, but in this season there are hopefully five games left for us. That’s again more than for most other teams in world football. On one side it’s a good sign because we are still in the competition; on the other side, the performance today maybe was influenced by the number of games we had. I don’t know but I’m not too much interested because I can’t change the number of games we had. But hopefully we have influence on the number of games we will have in the future. That’s all. We already work on our future, of course, but in this moment we are always in a situation and try to do our best. Ten days ago we were in brilliant shape and now we are not in bad shape. Today was not a good performance, that’s all. In general, we have developed really well and played good football. But like each team in the world, we need a tuned line-up usually. I was surprised in the last few games when we, without a tuned line-up, played really well. Today it was not good. That’s how it is.