Jürgen Klopp: I’m pleased with the performance but not the result
Jürgen Klopp acknowledged his disappointment at Liverpool being held to a 1-1 draw by Chelsea at Anfield, but was satisfied with his side’s performance and endeavours on Saturday evening.
Mohamed Salah swept the Reds into a 65th minute lead when he converted his 15th goal of the season so far; however, Willian came off the bench to rescue a point for the Blues when his cross-turned-shot beat Simon Mignolet in the final stages of a keenly-fought contest.
Afterwards, Klopp praised the attitude of his players as they turned in a strong display against the Premier League title holders.
Read on for a summary of the manager’s post-match press conference…
On his thoughts on the game…
Good game. Very intense game, very difficult for us against what everybody knows is a very strong Chelsea team with quite a different approach tonight; deep defending and then giving the ball to Eden Hazard. Wow! Not too bad, to be honest! So it was not the most thankful job I would say, to defend him alone. With the second player, more easy, with the third player you have a good chance. Alvaro Morata running around [too], so that’s quite difficult. We had to work really hard in these situations and stay cool in our situations of playing football and we did it, so I am happy about big parts of the performance.
I’m really proud of the attitude but I have to say that both teams were, attitude-wise, really on a high level and I think in weeks like this it could be different, not for us and not for, unfortunately, Chelsea tonight. So both teams had a big, big investment in this game. So, everything was good until Willian crossed the ball. Most parts of the game are still good, but it doesn’t feel that well, that’s how it is. But the world is a strange and crazy place at the moment, there are so many much more important things that happened, crazy things are happening, so I can easily live with a point against Chelsea.
On whether Lallana was ready to come on before Willian’s equaliser…
Maybe ask the ref, I don’t know. That’s how it is, we never did really time play [wasting] - people can say we are not really smart, but we don’t do it because of that, we wanted to change the system, we wanted to bring a player and that means we have to give advice and he said ‘no’.
After the game I was not happy with it because we wanted to change, what we did afterwards, to five at the back. In my mind, Ragnar Klavan would have been exactly in the position where Willian crossed the ball, that means we would’ve blocked the cross in my mind. It doesn’t feel too well when you couldn’t change the system because the ref thought maybe it was time play or something else. No idea why he said ‘no’. The assistant next to me was prepared, I was prepared, the player was prepared but [the referee said after the game] that the goal was four minutes after you wanted to change. Right! It didn’t make my feeling much better, to be honest, but we cannot change it anymore.
On whether he’s concerned about the gap with Manchester City…
In our situation, in all the other club’s [situations], if we would really now think about Manchester City we would all be really crazy. ‘How can we get Manchester City?’ There is work, but we have to win games and if they still go on winning all their games, we can do whatever we want. It’s really important in life you have your own targets and the right targets, then you can be a happy person – and a happy person can stay a confident person and a confident person can reach a lot. Today, I didn’t think for a second after the game about Manchester City; what I really thought was that we should have won the game. Then we would have had three points more and we would have been even with Chelsea and that would have been nice. Our position is still OK, but we have to improve, we can do better but the boys did well and after a game like this, a performance like tonight should not be taken for granted because it is so difficult. A lot of things could have happened and boys did really well, so I am happy about that but I am not happy about the result.
On his post-match conversation with Sadio Mane…
I was shouting at him because he was in the centre, but no player is happy about that. You come on the pitch in three minutes and you feel like you already have 150 minutes in your legs. I wanted to sort it immediately. He was not happy and he said to me Mo wanted to come into the position, but Mo had already 90 minutes in his legs so it would have made more sense that Sadio is closer to the right wing and can start the game from this position. It’s not a big thing; we could have done it in the dressing room and it would have been the same thing. Everything is sorted immediately and that’s it.
On whether Liverpool lined-up purposely to stop Eden Hazard…
When we made the line-up we had no clue how [Chelsea would line-up] – we thought we would have the extra problem with Fabregas. It was not that we would play against him, it was where the ball is in protection. It is not that difficult to be in the right space, the problem is in the moment he [Hazard] gets the ball, the difficulties start immediately. But with all the skills he has, he couldn’t make the difference tonight because we stopped him. Drinkwater had the two moments in the first half. We have to think about all of them, unfortunately. We were compact, we did really well. I think a lot of people wrote a lot about Alberto Moreno after the last game, so hopefully they think now again, ‘wow, what a reaction’ because it’s not normal to do it like this. He was 100 per cent in the game, it was nice to see and I am happy for him.