Liverpool 0-1 Burnley: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp offered a frank assessment after Liverpool were beaten 1-0 by Burnley at Anfield on Thursday evening.
The Reds suffered a first loss on home soil in the Premier League since April 2017 as Ashley Barnes swept in a late penalty to secure victory for the Clarets.
Afterwards, Klopp answered questions from journalists during his post-match press conference. Read on for a summary of what the manager had to say…
On whether he feels luck is not quite with Liverpool at the moment...
No, it is not the luckiest period of our lives, for sure not. But I think it would be a bit cheap to put it all on that; that we have not enough luck or in a specific moment. I think our problem is the decision-making in the moment and decisions are based on information I give obviously and the mood you are in, so how confident you are to do it in really small spaces and stuff like this. That's why I said what I said. That's the reason why we didn't score in these moments. It is not cool to mention it now but we won games with lesser possession against Burnley, with lesser chances against Burnley and we won them. Tonight we didn't win because we didn't score in the situations. When I look at the game back now and when I think about it – in all the interviews I had enough time to think a little bit about it – how is it possible that you lose that game? But we lost it. That's our, and that means my, fault.
On his side being capable of putting a run together...
Look, how silly would that be if I sit here now, losing against Burnley, didn't score for the last three or four games – I don't know exactly – and now I talk about the title race? How silly would that be? It's just we have to win football games – it was always like this. For this we have to score goals, there is no doubt about it. That's what we have to change and have to do better. If things don't work, you have to work harder, do the right things more often, longer and more consistent, all these kind of things. But not talking like it is an easy situation, it's not. It shows a lot of things. It's incredible how consistent the boys were but that was never something that anybody should have taken for granted because now we see they are all human beings, that's how it is. And now I have to make clear about what we have to do in the right moments and then we will score goals again.
On getting 'belief back into' his players...
It's the job a manager or a coach has to do. I'm not the first one who has that situation and I will not be the last one, but it is not helping if I tell you now what I will tell the boys and stuff like this. Anyway, about this specific game, I first have to think about it because after the game I just did interviews. It is still not rocket science, but it didn't work out again tonight. It's not the first game, it didn't work out for two, three, four games or whatever. That's what we take. It's not about the performance, it's decisive moments. We have to get better in the decisive moments again, we have to become ourselves again in the decisive moments. Not in the build-up, that's all good, and how we do different things, but in the last third, in the last moment, the decision-making is in the moment not how it should be. Now everybody will talk about it, it is not nice, that makes the problem not smaller, it makes it rather bigger and we still have to change it. That's what we will do.
On the confidence of the players…
We can do more with this group, we can play much better football, that is my concern. That is what I am thinking about. The confidence is not on the highest level, I think that is so obvious that I don't have to mention it – you can see it in specific moments. It is like 90 per cent of all what the boys did all of the time is still there, but the decisive 10 per cent in the moment is missing. So, now we have to work on this decisive 10 per cent. That's how it is – we always work on them, but now we have to dig a little bit deeper to get them back.
On the decision-making in the final third of the pitch…
They have the right information, they get the right information, but when I say it is my fault maybe I was not convincing enough, I could not give enough confidence, that's my job as well. I cannot say we are not confident enough and then say, 'I don’t know why that happened.' That is how I understand the job. It is about crossing in the right moment, passing in the right moment and all these kind of things. It is not that we gave the wrong information, but you need to be in the right mood to use it. You have to be brave in between the lines, you have to turn in between the lines, you have to pass the ball, you have to get it in between the lines and then you pass in behind the line and then full-back is coming from outside, is there and is crossing the ball. Again, it is not rocket science but obviously it didn't happen tonight and I think, how I understand it for myself – and that is the only thing that is important for me in this case – that it is my fault.