Jurgen Klopp not prioritising Premier League for Liverpool
Jurgen Klopp claims Liverpool have no priorities this season after Saturday’s 3-2 home loss to Swansea left them 10 points behind Chelsea.
The Reds have won just once in their last six games – the FA Cup replay with Plymouth – and Klopp revealed they had a long chat about the defeat to Swansea at the weekend.
Liverpool face Southampton in the EFL Cup semi-final second-leg looking to overhaul a 1-0 deficit, while they face Wolves in the FA Cup at the weekend and Klopp says they are not prioritising any competition this season
“We have no priorities,” Klopp said at Monday’s press conference.
“It’s now Capital One Cup, then FA Cup, then Premier League [because that’s the order].
“From outside viewing, it looks like they press the cup in between the season. It looks like no-one cares about it.
“The Premier League doesn’t care about it.
“We fight in each game. That’s the most important thing. Then we see.
“Of course, in cup competitions, the target is to win the Premier League. But it’s not that easy to plan or whatever. As I said a few weeks ago, if Chelsea win all their games, there’s no chance for other teams.
“But it’s important to finish the season as good as possible. We have the quality to fight for the Champions league, we should do this. And then, if you are close enough in the decisive moment of the season, then you can fight for a little bit more.
“We have two games, then Chelsea. And then we think about them.”
The German boss denied his side lacked intensity against Swansea after going 2-0 down to the Premier League strugglers.
“Intensity is something you speak more about it than we do.
“It’s not the reason. It was not the reason for the goals we conceded. We created I don’t know how many chances.
Even at 3-2 we shot 3/4 times in the six-yard box. It’s not intensity. We have to do things – defend and attack together – at the right times.
“If we would have done everything at our best. We would have more points – that’s clear. But we don’t.
“Now we have to show that we learn off it.”
Klopp meanwhile admitted the absence of Sadio Mane, Philippe Coutinho and Joel Matip has had an effect on the club.
“We missed Sadio…we missed Phil for a time…we missed Joel Matip. As much as I like Sadio, it’s not that we had problems because we missed Sadio.
“We made other mistakes, not because we’re not scoring enough goals. We scored enough goals to win the games.
“You always speak about defence, or players. I speak about the whole defence of the team. If it was to buy one player and fix it, i’d be silly not to do it. But it’s not that simple.
“I knew about the problems we had after Christmas, and that was disappointing. I saw before the game that we are back on the right track and we could see the freshness coming back in training.
But then we have this game, and it’s not so nice. But that’s part of life too. We had a long meeting after the game, so I’m ready for the rest of the season.
“We’ve come through a very intense period.”