Jurgen Klopp has dismissed claims Liverpool need a “major overhaul” after losing their fourth Premier League game of the season to Leeds at Anfield.
The visitors took the lead after a terrible mix-up between Alisson Becker and Joe Gomez, but Mo Salah leveled the FA Cup winners 10 minutes later.
And after a late goal from Crysencio Summerville gave Jesse March’s team three much-needed points, the Reds boss admitted he doesn’t have an explanation for his team’s lackluster performance.
“It is not always so difficult or impossible [to control games] but tonight it was,” Klopp said (quoted by the Liverpool Echo). “There is no excuse for that, but we have the problem from day one of injuries or half-trained players and that is what we carry and that is why some players play too much and others have to play too early and the next game is already. hoping for.
“Napoli now, some say we are done, but we will have to put in a proper performance. But you need 11 starters and then a few days later we play Tottenham. That is our situation.
“So now is not the time for a major review. We have to fight and fight for momentum, for confidence, for security, for all these things. We have to fight and that is what we do.
“I would have gotten a point tonight, no one would have been happy except me when you watch the game and how we conceded first, but my main problem is how we defended the second goal. When you don’t have the ball, everyone has to defend, and we weren’t all there.
“There may be an explanation for that that I don’t have at the moment, but that was my problem at the moment, but it happened anyway.”
READ MORE: Carragher delivers ‘serious’ verdict in Liverpool that Jurgen Klopp can’t afford to ignore
Liverpool were second for the most balls all night and the Elland Road side showed more of a struggle as we lost our first home game in the league for 18 months.
Darwin Nunez had several chances to put the Merseysiders ahead but could not beat an energetic Ilian Meslier, while Salah and Firmino came close.
However, we never seemed to be in control, and that is what worries us now that we are ninth in the table, eight points behind Newcastle in the final Champions League spot.
Klopp admitted that all of his players “can play better football” as he tried to dissect his team’s troubling performance.
“It’s difficult but not impossible [to control the game]”, added the former coach of Borussia Dortmund. “The guys really want to, that means we accelerate with the ball, an example was Robbo going outside, then going inside, but he has no option to play and then he loses the challenges twice. So it’s a counterattack. How often do we see Robbo doing that and he has different options? He can [usually] pass the ball inside and all that kind of stuff but nobody was there today.
“In these moments we show that we really want it, but we have to play smarter against a compact formation that Leeds obviously have. You have to be calm in moments, I know it sounds very ridiculous when you want to score goals, but in football it is like that and you have to change the rhythm in those moments.
“We didn’t do well enough at the time and that leads to situations where we lose the ball again and that means space for a counterattack or whatever and it doesn’t look good. That means you can’t get a real boost in the game. And it doesn’t feel good. That is what I wanted to say.
“It’s a mix of everything, of course. It’s no secret that almost everyone on the pitch can play better football. No doubt about that. You have to do the simple things well and then you gain confidence and drive. We had that in different games, but today we couldn’t get it and that’s what I want to say.
Ep63 of The Empire of the Kop podcast: Klopp’s ridiculous accusations of xenophobia, Núñez shining… and more!
