Klopp: Why I'm glad we got the draw in final Anfield match
Jürgen Klopp was relieved that Liverpool could bid farewell to Anfield for this season by avoiding defeat in the last minutes of their Barclays Premier League clash with Chelsea.
Into stoppage-time on Wednesday night the Reds trailed to Eden Hazard’s first-half effort, but Christian Benteke pounced in the closing seconds to secure a 1-1 draw for the Reds.
With the game their final one on home soil for the campaign, Klopp and his players took a lap of the stadium to thank the fans for the support provided throughout 2015-16.
Read on for the key points from the manager’s post-match press conference.
On his team’s performance…
The first 15 minutes were great – wonderful football without scoring. I said to my players after the game that this was the most important game of the season because we could learn from most of it. We showed in the first 15 minutes what we are capable of but obviously we were surprised about ourselves. There was not enough trust and faith in our own quality. So we lost patience and when you lose patience in football it’s always difficult. With patience, we lost formation; we had a lot of moments around the box when we shot when we should have still passed. When you have three players around the ball and one of them shoots and the ball is blocked, you have no formation for winning the ball back. That’s quite difficult. Chelsea showed a lot of their usual quality. It was then difficult for us.
On the players becoming tired in the game…
[In the] second half we tried to do better. But you saw that the first half was quite intense, because we ran a lot but not with good timing in defending. We had the most one-on-one situations in the last five or six months. Against these quality players it makes no sense. We didn’t defend really compact, not together, but invested a lot and that makes [you] tired. It’s like a boxer that [always punches] and doesn’t hit. That makes you more tired than when you hit all the time. That’s how it is and that was the problem of the game. They could have scored the second one but Simon Mignolet did brilliantly. Kolo and Dejan, in one or two situations saved our life in these moments. So we still had the opportunity to score. We had two or three really good moments and used one. It’s a draw. At the end, with the last 10 minutes, it’s not too lucky. Of course, we could have lost today, that’s clear. But we can take a lot of information out of this game.
On having more trust in the team’s quality…
I love this stadium and I love this atmosphere, but everybody lost patience tonight – the crowd too. It’s quite difficult when you have the ball and the manager says you need to be patient and everybody shouts ‘run!’ That’s a little bit difficult. We all don’t trust finally our quality. It’s not a problem for the last two games. We can learn this in the future and I’m pretty sure we will, because if you don’t think you need to score in each situation because you know you have the players on the pitch to create chances and score goals, you could celebrate other situations. That’s all. It was difficult and we saw then we can play much better passes. Nearly every player did this. We lost the rhythm in the game. In the last 10 minutes, we deserved the draw because they didn’t score the second goal. That’s the story of the game.
On how the players never give up…
That’s what we learned this season, that’s clear. 1-0 is the best result to still draw. It was not in doubt that we could have chances so we changed for this – we had the most offensive formation we could have in the last 15 minutes. Each striker was on the pitch, each offensive midfield player. [It was] a wonderful cross, by the way, from Ojo and Christian was where he has to be. That was great. For the night and celebrating with the families and the crowd, it was wonderful that we didn’t lose and we came back in this game. We have to build on these very positive signs that the boys gave us in the last few months. But there’s still a way to go, of course.
On Sergi Canos and the plans for his future…
The earliest plan is that he will be in training tomorrow because he is back. I learn more and more about English football and it’s possible that he is available for Sunday. It’s unbelievable and great. Now we will see how he feels, how he is. He did really well at Brentford. He scored in the last game and had a lot of time to play. For him it was really good to be there. The Championship is quite a strong league and for young players it is really difficult to go through, but he did well.