Liverpool lost yet another Premier League home game, this time going down 4-1 to Manchester City and after that loss, the Anfield outfit are currently fourth on the league table.
The loss means Liverpool are now 10 points behind league leaders Manchester City and the difference could stretch to 13 points if City win their game in hand. It’s definitely a big gap to claw down, more so, since the Reds are heading back into the Champions League later this month.
Klopp would have loved to keep his full focus on the Premier League but Liverpool take on RB Leipzig in the Round of 16 of the UCL and the German boss just cannot afford to name a second-string side in that game.
The manager was subtly reminded of this dual challenge lying ahead of him but Klopp seems to be pretty aware of it and is not ready to shy away either.
He said after the defeat to Man City, as reported by the club’s official website: “Look, we knew that[fighting in two fronts] from the beginning of the season, so that’s not new.
“You cannot only go to the Champions League when you are from first to the last matchday in the Champions League spots. It’s something you have to fight for. Three or four years ago, we were for the majority of the season in that spot but then Chelsea started chasing us.
“Whoever is in front of us, we will chase, definitely, but we have to do that in our games. We lost the game and we have to take that first and foremost, so immediately speaking [and saying], ‘We will do this and we will do that’ is just not real. We have to deal with that tonight because, what I said, I saw a lot of good stuff; a really good football game, a football game where I didn’t see the 13 points difference or whatever, but that’s not important.
“We lost the game, I know that, but I saw as well a really good football team in red shirts, so that’s really important.
“Somebody can tell me whatever went wrong, stuff like this, I know the things probably before already so that’s not a problem.
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“We take that. But it is not the last game of the season so there are a lot of games to come. If we would have played more often as we played tonight, we would not be 10 or 13 points behind City but it is not a dreamland or whatever, we have to accept the reality and we do that. We will fight, we will fight for results.
“Tonight we did that. We didn’t get it because of our own fault, that’s clear, but the good stuff we should keep.”
The next few weeks are going to be really challenging for Liverpool, starting with a league match vs Leicester City next weekend. Following that, they take on Leipzig in the Champions League and then just three days later, they face Carlo Ancelotti’s Everton in the Merseyside Derby.
With so many injuries, Jurgen Klopp cannot even manage to heavily rotate his first-team players so there’s a big possibility that the Liverpool boss could go for damage limitation during the first leg of the UCL game in Hungary. And then try to wrap up the two-legged tie in Anfield.
