Jürgen Klopp: We're ready for the battle - 100 per cent
Jürgen Klopp emphasised the belief he has in his Liverpool squad as he insisted they are 'ready for the battle' of improving their recent form.
The Reds journey to Old Trafford for an FA Cup fourth-round clash with Manchester United on Sunday on the back of a 1-0 home defeat by Burnley in the Premier League.
Klopp’s side have now gone five top-flight matches without a win and four without a goal, and the boss was asked about dealing with the pressure that comes with such a run.
“No, I don’t feel the pressure from outside,” he said. “I dealt with the pressure I put on myself my entire life already, so I’m kind of used to that and I know myself good enough that it’s pretty difficult to make me really happy on the long term with something. Short term I’m quite easy to excite but in the long term it’s not easy.
“When you had the success we had, there are two directions: one is you keep going exactly on the same level, which is difficult with the challenges we have around. And the other one, it gets a little bit less. In the moment it feels like it’s a lot less and that’s what we of course have to change.
“We are not like this that we think just because we try we should get everything. We are really ready for the fight, we are ready for the battle, 100 per cent. But in the moment we didn’t use the right tools, that’s true as well and that’s what we absolutely have to adjust and to improve. And that’s what we do.
“The only problem is the tests we face are constantly public and on television. That means everybody watches each little step in whichever direction; that’s obviously very nice when you have a good run and when you have not that good a run it’s not exactly the same, there’s not the same enjoyment. But anyway, it’s the thing to do.
“I’m not in doubt about us as a group, not at all. But these moments you need the group to come closer together and do the right things – and that’s what we do.
“We lost the game [against Burnley] and it was a really low point, it’s not that I thought, ‘Oh, who cares?’ It’s not because of the series [of unbeaten league games at Anfield], which was nice as well. It was a game we lost and when I think back I can’t find a reason why we lost that game. But we lost it, with all the things that happened with the penalty, the chance we had and all these kind of things.
“It happened – and sometimes you need a really low point to then change things properly. And that’s for sure what we will try and we will go for now, that’s 100 per cent.
“If we would have won [against Burnley] in a bad game, like somehow 1-0, the world would have said: ‘OK, it’s not the football they usually play but they are back on the results path.’ But in the long term that wouldn’t have helped. [Thursday] can be a real help if we use it.”
Klopp was also asked about the influence Liverpool’s senior players can have within the dressing room during difficult periods on the pitch.
“They have always an incredibly important part, they always play a really important role. But not only them,” he said.
“I can imagine what a lot of people think about us in the moment and all these kind of things – but people don’t change overnight, people sometimes face challenges they are not immediately ready for and sometimes don’t even know that a challenge ever will come up. But this is a challenge we didn’t want to have. Was it absolutely impossible that it could happen? No, especially in the situation we are [in].
“They are always important and they are still brilliant people and brilliant characters, all of them. All of them made happen what happened in the past few years. And, again, they don’t change overnight their personality – it’s still a really, really, really good group.
“Led by some of them, they are always strong and always important. Do I use them? I don’t have to really because they work without remote control actually!”