MY ACCOUNT
Jurgen Klopp suggested Liverpool were asking to be punished with the way they defended for Leeds United’s winning goal on Saturday.
The Reds were beaten 2-1 in dramatic circumstances at Anfield, with Crysencio Summerville poking home from inside the box after Patrick Bamford was able to tee the youngster up.
Liverpool had numbers back but failed to stop Wilfried Gnonto from getting his cross into the box in the build-up despite the Italy international being faced up by two defenders.
Similarly, both Bamford and Summerville were outnumbered in the penalty area as well, and Klopp was left frustrated.
“It was a setback, absolutely,” the German told Sky Sports. “I thought we had a really good start then conceded a freakish goal.
“We scored the equaliser but for some reason it didn’t give us the security back. We struggled to control the game and gave too many balls away.
“The boys tried, we had good possession and had big chances but, in the end, if it is 1-1 and you defend the situation around the second goal like this, you leave everything open.
“In the end, it was two versus one in the box and they can finish off the situation. The problem is we cannot control this type of game at the moment.”
He added: “A team performance is always made up of individual performances. It’s the same, it’s never different, so how could it be different? One leads to the other.
“You can see we had a lot of good moments, like a lot of parts of the game, but all over it’s not enough if you don’t finish your situations off.
“You can watch this game completely, but you cannot defend like we did for the second goal, but we did, that’s why we lost, otherwise it would have been a point which would’ve been deserved and we’d go from there. Now we have nothing and it feels completely different.”
Liverpool have been unfortunate with injuries and illness this season and ultimately their squad has not been deep enough to dampen the impact of those absences.
Klopp again offered this as one explanation for Liverpool’s issues, with the Reds potentially set to end the weekend 15 points off the Premier League summit, but he urged his players to show more fighting spirit.
“Maybe some players are overplayed,” Klopp continued. “Harvey [Elliott] has been exceptional for us this season. He had a good start but couldn’t keep it going.
“Thiago [Alcantara] was ill last week, but not in the last few days so we thought he was fresh. Up front the same [players] play all the time – they are the three strikers we have left.
“All these kinds of things but in the end if you don’t finish your situations off, they were there and it changed the game completely. We have to fight and that is what we must do.
“We have to bring our quality on to the pitch and we fight against it. We had problems from the first day, injury wise.
“Players have had to play from the first day. It’s our situation and it means we have to help ourselves, and that is what we will do.”
