Boss on lifting Liverpool, a reaction to Sevilla and facing Chelsea

The Reds let a three-goal first-half lead slip in Spain on Tuesday night as they were held to a 3-3 tie in the Champions League group-stage encounter.

Reigning champions Chelsea are next up, but speaking in his pre-match press conference, Klopp explained why he’s confident Liverpool will be ready to go again tomorrow night.

Read on for a summary of the manager’s media briefing…

On whether he has to ‘lift’ Liverpool after the midweek draw in Sevilla…

I’m not sure we have to lift them. We are not in a kindergarten - we have to live everything and we have to talk about the things. So, yes, we made mistakes, yes we were passive. That’s what I said after the game. In a lot of situations we were too deep, as a group we did not play football anymore - that’s all true.

The performance over 90 minutes, including with the 45 minutes in the first half, we were already not that happy. In the beginning we were playing football and scored goals - and we could have, should have scored the fourth one after fantastic play. That’s how it is with games and the result is only one [piece of] information; we have much more information from the game after we did the analysis. It will be a different game against Chelsea, especially because it will be at Anfield and if we can create a special atmosphere I would say it would help us as well.

On whether Liverpool need to ‘be more ruthless’…

I don’t get the meaning of ruthless 100 per cent, I know what it means somehow. [Sevilla] was a kind of an experience, we were not that often in a European game in a situation like this with the knowledge that with a win, we were already through in the group, so for human beings it is quite normal to try to defend it in the wrong way somehow.

We’ve had a lot of signs for a very good mentality and now not a good mentality, so that’s true. But I know the boys better than you do and I know they really want it, but they’ve chosen the wrong tools - it’s easy as that, which is the situation.

We could change it. You saw the goals and how we conceded them. It was quite special, but it was not only a single player. The penalty in the end was Alberto of course and the free kick was Alberto but it was not like that. Where we had the situation and why we had the situation? Why we did play the back pass in the penalty situation?

We played other back passes, we had the ball around the third goal again and we had the ball between two of our players. One reacted quicker and shot the ball and next goal. So it’s all us and about how we felt in the situation and you need to unfortunately in life you have to have the experience to learn off it. We knew how we were before the game and couldn’t change it, it doesn’t mean anything else.

On whether he’s excited by Liverpool’s recent attacking form…

I am not so easy to excite, actually. I’m happy about things in the moment but when I saw it, it is already gone. So we have to do it again and again, that’s the thing. We have quality, skills and potential in all parts, especially the offensive - no doubt about it. We have the width in the squad and a lot of things we could do, so that’s all good.

As a team, we need to bring it all day and every day on the pitch - that is the challenge. After the Southampton game it was a really good one, everyone was really happy and then we play the Sevilla game. We didn’t have a fantastic first half, but we had a fantastic result after the first half, then after second half obviously a few things are coming up again.

Now it is Chelsea - what a team, the champions of last year - and it will be really tough to do. But no problem, we have nothing else to do but beating them at 5.30 and beating them at 7.15 if it’s possible. That’s the only thing, so I am happy about a lot of things but we have to show it again.

On the challenge on facing Chelsea…

They are very good, still. They lost two very decisive players with Matic and Costa and that’s the situation. You always have to make a step - not back, but to the side - and try to develop again. Chelsea last year, it was a tuned side, everything worked in pretty much all the games, they defended really well and didn’t need a lot of chances to win the games. It was then Hazard and Costa very often made good decisions and if they didn't do it then Pedro was there or Willian was there.

Apart from two players they have pretty much the same team but it's very difficult in this league to play the same season like you did before, especially when you lose players. They are in the position they probably would have expected, and nobody has influence on the situation of Man City. They are flying, so nobody can so far cope with them. Still, [Chelsea are] a fantastic football team, 100 per cent.