Jürgen Klopp's verdict on cup exit to Leicester
Jürgen Klopp acknowledged his disappointment at Liverpool's Carabao Cup exit to Leicester City on Tuesday night, admitting defensive errors cost his side at the King Power Stadium.
After a dominant first-half showing in which the Reds created several good goalscoring opportunities, the Foxes took the lead just past the hour mark via Shinji Okazaki after a cleared corner was hoisted back into the visitors’ area and found its way to the substitute.
Islam Slimani then made sure of victory for Leicester with his stunning 78th-minute strike, breaking forward from a deep throw-in and driving the ball into the top corner to end Liverpool’s hopes of progression in the tournament.
Afterwards, Klopp spoke to the media in his post-match press conference. Read on for a summary of what he had to say…
On his reflection on the game…
The story of this game is really easy to explain: we were the much better team in the first half, we played good football – really good – didn’t score, that’s sometimes a part of football. We were unlucky in one or two moments, maybe not clinical enough in another moment. But as long as we concede goals like we conceded today again then it is quite difficult. We should have scored three, but as long as you leave games open, you have to defend. You always have to defend these situations better. [The first goal came from a] second ball after a corner, I think… it was close, but it was not offside. Really close, so we need to make it more clear it is offside and the only thing you can do is to push up. You cannot defend always like we did against Arsenal and [start] a counter-attack or whatever. We had to push up and we didn’t. The second one is a throw-in again and everyone can imagine we know how to defend them but obviously we don’t do it. It doesn’t feel too cool but it’s the truth that we are still a good football team. I see it but unfortunately it doesn’t feel it at the moment because we exited a cup competition. We wanted to go to the next round. Nobody was interested in who played the better first half, everyone was interested who will go through and we are not the team that will be in the next round for some good reasons.
LFCTV GO: Jürgen Klopp's post-Leicester press conference
On whether Liverpool’s players’ heads dropped after the first Leicester goal…
After the first goal you saw the heads from Leicester went up, so that was the biggest difference. It is a game-changer, moments like this. You always have a chance to do it yourselves, or sometimes you are on the wrong side and that’s how it is. That we conceded like this, that makes me really, really sick. That’s hard. Then the reaction, you saw a young team, we played one-twos on the left wing at 2-0 and then [Leicester] made a counter-attack. These are mistakes I can live with because the two boys [Woodburn and Solanke] together are about 34 [in combined age], so that can happen. But defending set-pieces, it wasn’t the first ball [for the first goal] – we had problems with this and now we had it with the second or third even and then the throw-in.
On Philippe Coutinho’s withdrawal at half-time…
That was the plan before the game, he needs match time but it was not for a second the plan [to keep him on] and it was not allowed to let him play again for 90 minutes, or 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever. It was clear that 45 is the limit, we need to make him fit but we cannot push him through. That’s all.
On whether the No.10 is ‘on schedule’ as he works his way back to full fitness…
Yes, of course. 80-something [minutes] at the weekend and then 45 today.
On doing more defensive work in training…
We do it all the time. Defending is different things, it’s common together defending and it’s individual defending, it’s one-on-one situations, it’s two-on-one situations… I don’t think teams shoot a lot against us, I know they don’t, they have not a lot of finishing situations. We defend really well in a lot of moments – how everyone can imagine, we know how to defend a set-piece, a throw-in, and then you change two or three times and then in the end, obviously it doesn’t work. I’m in the boat, it’s not that I say ‘I told you and you don’t know’. I feel really bad in the moment about this, of course it’s not about not knowing, it’s about doing it in that moment – that’s hard in the moment, it feels really hard in this moment to go out because of this [and] after that performance in the first half. But we have, we have to play like this, we are able – we made seven or eight chances and we still can play football, that’s cool, good, good, good, but as long as you concede goals like this it makes life really difficult.
On returning to the King Power this weekend…
Will I still feel sick when I come back here on Saturday? I lost more games in my life unfortunately and believe me or not, tomorrow morning I am fine. Yes, we will come back and I will be before the game for sure in a better shape than right now.