Liverpool 1-4 Manchester City: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp felt a largely positive performance was undermined by individual mistakes as Liverpool lost 4-1 to Manchester City at Anfield.
Mohamed Salah won and converted a penalty to equalise Ilkay Gundogan’s 49th-minute opener, but City capitalised on defensive errors to score twice in the space of three minutes through Gundogan and Raheem Sterling, before Phil Foden added a fourth.
Read on for a transcript of Klopp’s post-match press conference…
On how 1-1 appeared to be a fair scoreline given Liverpool’s display up to that point, but it quickly went to 4-1…
That is a fair assessment. Look, big parts of the game were really, really good. I think tonight there played two teams against each other: one with a crazy good run, won now their 14th game in a row, and another team with obviously different results – better and lesser good results. And then nobody saw that in the first half, you only saw two really good football teams who tried to cause each other problems. I think we were, for a lot of people probably, surprisingly dominant in the first half, [we] played really good stuff. 0-0 at half-time, keep on going, expect little changes because I always do that, adapt to them as quick as possible. Find the right spaces to play football again because that’s the main thing, we played really confident football.
And then second half we started, they changed system to 4-4-2, at least defensively so they changed the high press and we had these few minutes where we try to find the solution in the last line, obviously, to find a free player in midfield. The movement was not exactly like it should have been then. Then they scored their first goal, we scored the equaliser and then we made two massive mistakes, that’s how it is. They used that and pretty much game over. In a game when you have such a good moment in the game, these two goals were obviously the killer of the game. Everybody knows that and we don’t have to speak around that. That’s the truth. And then Phil Foden with a brilliant individual effort scores the fourth one and that’s why the result is as it is. So, the result is actually the absolute opposite of what we want and the performance is what we wanted in the majority of the game, but in the end we lost anyway.
On how valuable the next six days before the Leicester City match will be to regroup and get the new signings further up to speed in training…
Very important, very important for all different reasons. Yes, of course we have to speak about it, we have to take it in the right way. So yes, being angry about the result is completely fine but don’t forget the good stuff because playing against City football like we did today, calm and stuff like this and in small spaces, that was really, really good. It was really good so we will take that as well. But I know people are mostly only interested in the result and that isn’t right again, so we have to take that and will take that.
On being ready to bounce back…
Really, criticism is always like this. Somebody can tell me whatever went wrong, stuff like this, I know the things probably before already so that’s not a problem. We take that. But it is not the last game of the season so there are a lot of games to come. If we would have played more often as we played tonight, we would not be 10 or 13 points behind City but it is not a dreamland or whatever, we have to accept the reality and we do that. We will fight, we will fight for results. Tonight we did that. We didn’t get it because of our own fault, that’s clear, but the good stuff we should keep.
On the two uncharacteristic mistakes made by Alisson Becker…
I spoke to him now a few seconds ago. He is obviously very disappointed and his words were, ‘Not today, not today…’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the problem with mistakes, you cannot decide when you make them.’ The only thing you can do is learn off it. That is what he will do and it will never happen to him again, I am pretty sure. But tonight it was decisive, I would say. That’s OK, he saved our lives I don’t know how often, he is an absolutely world-class goalie and tonight some things went a little bit wrong and we have to take that and we do.
On whether Andy Robertson picked up a knock…
No, everything’s fine.
On managing Liverpool’s run in the Premier League and Champions League…
Look, we knew that from the beginning of the season, so that’s not new. You cannot only go to the Champions League when you are from first to the last matchday in the Champions League spots. It’s something you have to fight for. Three or four years ago, we were for the majority of the season in that spot but then Chelsea started chasing us. Whoever is in front of us, we will chase, definitely, but we have to do that in our games. We lost the game and we have to take that first and foremost, so immediately speaking [and saying], ‘We will do this and we will do that’ is just not real. We have to deal with that tonight because, what I said, I saw a lot of good stuff; a really good football game, a football game where I didn’t see the 13 points difference or whatever, but that’s not important. We lost the game, I know that, but I saw as well a really good football team in red shirts, so that’s really important.
On what he said to Alisson post-match…
I said to him already, ‘We have stands, you can shoot the ball there.’ It is like it is. Different things came together, we didn’t offer exactly the right things because in the first half Ali played exceptional football. He was really calm on the ball, passing the ball through in small spaces, exactly what we wanted him to do. Then in the second half, in the beginning he didn’t do that. He didn’t see the offers because we didn’t make them exactly in the right way and the problem is [then] he doesn’t shoot the ball somewhere far away from the dangerous spots. He knows that. It is now not about that and I can’t help him now through the night, but we all have nights like this and tomorrow he will be OK again and then we will go again.
On how Liverpool will use the six-day gap ahead of their next game…
They have a day off, Tuesday I think. Tomorrow we have training, we have recovery and all that stuff. Tuesday will be off. I prefer that tomorrow we speak again about it in the right manner, that we have the day off then with the right mindset. I don’t like it too much but it happened from time to time, if you are then at home, we all think our own stuff, we think, ‘Oh my god, it’s a catastrophe.’ There are worse things in the world than losing a football game. For us, it is very, very important, no doubt about that, but I want them to understand and to know the football we played tonight in long periods of the game, if we would have played this football more often then we would have more points. As I said, we will speak tomorrow about that, Tuesday will be off and then everyone can recover.