Jurgen Klopp turned towards the dugout, filled his fist, and smiled as he joined his coaching staff. Those exuberant bear hugs haven’t been seen often enough lately but Tuesday’s win over RB Leipzig was a cause for satisfaction.
Liverpool entered the match after a run of three Premier League victories that forced Klopp to surrender the title willingly. But the manner of victory in Budapest – ruthless and far-reaching – was as pleasing as Klopp’s own result.
“It helps to convince people that what you are doing is still right,” he says. Sky Sports. “It’s not too hard to believe that team. But it’s a little harder to believe other people, because when you don’t have results, people want big changes here and big changes there.”
It’s three days later – “that game already feels like a back age,” Klopp adds with a cuckle – and the Liverpool manager is back at the club ‘s Kirkby headquarters preparing for Saturday’ s Merseyside derby. “The games are coming thick and fast.”
The schedule is relentless and while Liverpool’s start to the Champions League beating levels gave some confidence, Saturday’s fall in Leicester, where a one-goal lead turned into a two-goal deficit instead of seven minutes, celebrating their domestic struggles this season. .
The unbeaten champions made their way to the crown last year and were named “mental monsters” by their manager, finding themselves 16 points off the top in sixth place this time around. .
Mistakes have permeated their achievements, leaders have given way too easily, and the previous aura of invisibility is looming around the missing side.
Klopp knows it will take time to pick him up.
“It didn’t happen overnight in the first place and it won’t happen overnight now,” he says. “Creating minds is a sustainable thing you have to do.
“This is not the first time in my life or in the lives of the players that we haven’t got the results we want. We have to work. We have to pick things up again and it’s one of the things we have to rebuild that kind of mindset, to be unstable.
“It won’t help if I tell you now that we will, from now on, be unsustainable again, or whatever. It’s just about working on it.
“In every game, we want to be the last team the other team wants to play against. That’s what we were and it is what we still are, at times, but without enough times, to be honest. “
Unsurprisingly, Liverpool’s minds have suffered from the conditions in which they found themselves this season.
One after the other over the past few months, Klopp has watched his key fans in the middle get injured at the end of the season. Virgil van Dijk is, of course, greatly missed, but so are Joe Gomez and Joel Matip.
The club were involved on the final day of the January transfer window, signing Ozan Kaban from Schalke and Ben Davies from Preston to provide protective cover. But Klopp remains concerned about the reports he will receive from the club’s medical department.
Even Fabinho, the midfielder tasked with filling in at the back without Liverpool’s natural midfielders, has been sidelined a few weeks ago with a muscle issue.
“This season, when I get a message from the medical department, I always know that a semifinalist will be involved,” Klopp said.
“It’s been like this for the whole season and it may be like this until the end of the season. One thing happens and it leads to the next problem. It’s unbelievable. .
“That won’t help us play the best season we can play – and the best season we have have play to be near the spots where you can be heroes.
“When we’re close to 100 percent, we’re at real risk for everyone. But for various reasons, we weren’t at 100 percent often enough.
“We don’t take it as an excuse, we just understand it. It won’t always be like this but this season we have to sort it out.”
He has made a challenging campaign for everyone in Liverpool. Even the most reliable Alisson achievements have suffered. But it has been particularly difficult for the club ‘s new signings.
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Thiago Alcantara has certainly had some difficult times since joining £ 25m from Bayern Munich, the latest of which came when he conceded a free kick since Leicester took their chance last weekend. Klopp, however, believes there has been too much controversy about the 29-year-old man’s struggle.
“He came in late, which is just like the nature of some moves, then he got Covid, he was injured, and he still had to change to a new team – and a team that just didn’t fly without problems at all,” said Klopp.
“We had to rebuild the team almost every three days because of the last line change and a lot of things, so that’s just unfortunate for Thiago. But he has played great games and had special times on the pitch, and he has such great respect in the squad.
“It’s just the public view. ‘Oh, Thiago is in and we’re not performing well anymore.’ These things are just b *******, let me say so! They are just not right.
“Everyone needs time to change. Bayern played a different style, in a different league, and they were much stronger in the Bundesliga than any team can be in the Premier League.
“So that’s all different. But thank God, we’re all smart enough to make a proper judgment of the situation here. Thiago can play better football, yes, of course, but we can all play better football. No doubt about it. “
Klopp is not just questioning the coverage of Thiago’s shows. He also believes Liverpool’s collection performances have not been as bad as their situation suggests.
Consistency has eliminated them, of course. Their defensive frailties are unproven. But the win over RB Leipzig was not the only time Liverpool looked like their old men this season.
The baseline numbers show they are still effectively pushing opponents and creating second-rate scoring opportunities for Manchester City leaders. Many of the virtues that made them heroes, in other words, still exist.
“The situation isn’t cool but it’s not as bad as it is when you talk to the media,” Klopp said. “It’s two worlds. It’s the view from the outside and the view from the inside. Both are perfectly correct but I can’t be overwhelmed by the view from the outside. .
“It’s not something I’m very interested in because I know, and I always knew, that I give 100 percent. It may not be the best 100 percent in the world, but it is. it’s my 100 percent and I can’t give it more.I did it when we won all the games and I will do it now.
“It doesn’t seem like in good times we close our eyes and say, ‘Come on, let’s keep going and we’ll do this all over again and again’.
“We’re always changing things but always as long as we apply our principles and that’s the situation we’re in now. We had the results, and now we’re going to go for better results in the next games. “
Klopp has suffered a personal tragedy this season and was unable to attend his mother’s funeral earlier this month due to travel restrictions. But he rejects any suggestion that this is the most challenging time in his management role on the pitch.
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“Perhaps the best problem you can have is to be a champion and then not be a champion again the year after that, to be honest,” he says. all other teams want to have that problem.
“This is the most challenging time in parts of my life, for sure, but not on the football side.
“I was in much worse situations in my life as a player and as a coach in Germany, fighting to stay in the league. Those are real problems.
“I think I went through all the different levels of problems in those times. They had almost all of them. So, the problem I have now is in Liverpool. the best I could be. “
This is a vision that has enabled Klopp to continue to spread sensitivity to his players even through the difficulties they have been through this season.
“Most of the time we have cameras in training and stuff like this and when people see us laughing during the week, they think,‘ What are they laughing at? ? ‘
“But for me it’s not a problem to spread sensitivity because I’m very happy to be here. I love my job. I love my players. I love the club. I in the right place here and we try very hard to change things around – in the short and long term too.
“Losing a game, losing two games, losing three games – it’s a problem. But it’s only a real problem if you don’t learn from it.
“We always try to learn from what we lost and we hope to use that on Saturday against Everton, and a week later. [against Sheffield United], and 100 percent we will use it next season.
“It’s just experience. A lot of things in my life are experiences and experiences are always important because, if you’re smart enough, you use them for the better.
“That’s what we do.”
Watch Liverpool vs Everton live on Sky Sports Premier League HD from 5pm on Saturday; kick start 5.30pm