Press conferenceJürgen Klopp's verdict on Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool

The Reds and the Blues were unable to be separated in Tuesday night's battling encounter in the Premier League.

Kai Havertz saw a 51st-minute effort ruled out for handball by VAR, while Joe Gomez and Fabinho went closest for Liverpool in the opening period.

Neither team, though, were able to find a decisive strike to break the deadlock as the points were shared in the capital.

Read on for a summary of what Klopp had to say during his post-match press conference below…

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On whether it was a 'point gained or two dropped'...

Gained. It's an away game; this was not the most spectacular 0-0 I ever saw. I saw two of them – Liverpool v Chelsea – last year, the two finals, [they were] absolutely insane. Very similar teams I would say, but completely different football because of a different level of confidence for both teams. This was the fight we have to show tonight, this was the way we have to start our development again. We cannot now hope – because we did a couple of things that were absolutely not like they should have been – that we fixed it overnight. I decided to make six changes, that always against a good football team can be a problem.

Three of them in the last line as well, which is obviously a real challenge for the players and we could see in the first few minutes they went direct, playing behind the last line, [and] we had a few problems there. Apart from that, they had their chances after we lost balls in moments where you just cannot lose balls. It's now a problem we keep a little bit, that's not good, but the recovery after that, the desire to sort the situation, I liked. Nil-nil, not the most spectacular one but a step for us. A little step, but a step in the right direction.

On how he motivated the players following the weekend defeat at Manchester City...

That's now not the problem. You can see, confidence sometimes just comes up again. I don't expect us to have no confidence, but I know we have to put the hard work first. It is not a situation where you go out with back-heels and one-twos – we have to fight through it. I know people don't want to hear it anymore, but we cannot change that. If someone else would sit here, they would have to say the same: it wouldn't start with bicycle kicks. I saw a really good attitude from my team tonight and that's what I wanted to see. This is the basis for the rest of the season.

On whether the amount of games Liverpool and Chelsea played last season has had an impact on their form this campaign...

I don't know. I am not sure you can measure that, really. But yes, last season was on the edge of being too much, that's clear. That's it pretty much. It is not a real explanation for it, it is more an observation, I would say. Obviously some teams struggle this year in a way you wouldn't have expected. Mainly teams perform maybe much better than last year who were not overperforming last year, so it is a little bit like that. But honestly, it is not that we go for any excuses. It is already long ago. Yes, we had our problems, but we still could have done better – definitely. That is something we take really serious.

For now, it is not about finding big explanations or whatever, it's about putting the hard work in – and that's what the boys did tonight. That's what I liked about the game. As I said, it is not a game people will write books about but it is a point for us and it is one more than before and I can easily live with that. From here we go: the next game is Arsenal now. I don't know exactly where Arsenal were last year, but they are now obviously flying, in incredible shape, play super football, honestly, that is really good to watch. But we are there, it is a home game and our home record is not as bad as the away record. It means I am really looking forward to this game now because tonight I saw a step and that's what I wanted. Now let's carry on.

On Curtis Jones' overall performance...

Good. Absolutely good. Until he lost power a little bit, but that's now completely normal. [The] midfield was OK, but... if you go back and look [at] all the chances Chelsea had [it] was after we lose the ball in the moment where we cannot lose the ball. It's not that offensively we lose the ball, we win the ball and, I am not sure who, the defender passes the ball just into their feet and the next ball is not to defend. It's just not, if you lose these balls, there's no formation in the world. There we have to improve, but again step by step. Tonight I really thought we were much more compact in a lot of moments. We put much more pressure on the decisive player than we did in the last game, stuff like this.

So, no, different opponent next game, different jobs to do, but we will find a way to cause them problems and that's what you have to be first and foremost. Each development [and] each success starts with being difficult to beat and we have to be difficult to beat again. If we are that, you build confidence, if you build confidence you are much closer to your best self than we are in the moment. That will not happen just like this. It is not possible without super-hard work and we will do that.

On whether the top four is still achievable...

I don't know if there is any chance, for that we must win pretty much all the games and the other teams must lose a lot of games. It's not in our hands, I cannot say, what can I say about that? It's not important. If you would be only motivated on the highest level if somebody tells us, 'Oh, you have a chance for the top four...' Then if we are not fourth, then I want to be fifth, if we are not fifth, then we want to be sixth, so that's what I want to be. For that we have to win football games, because in the moment I don't even know where we are exactly. Eighth? Seventh? Ninth? I don't know – it's not interesting.

We have another 10 games to play and the next one is Arsenal. Not the other nine, I am not interested in [those games]. But the next one is Arsenal, so if we are difficult to beat against Arsenal we can win this game. If not, Arsenal will just go over us and then we will see. With one point, the steps, how I said, are not massive. If you win a football game, all of a sudden three points for one game; wow, things can look different. But for the moment we have no lack of goals, or lack of where we want to end up; we want to be as successful as possible. But that means for each weekend, or for each midweek game, like today, we want to win it. I saw that tonight and for that, I am fine.