Klopp makes major title admission by telling Liverpool fans to celebrate

Jurgen Klopp encouraged Liverpool fans to start thinking they have won the league – but isn’t letting his players get drawn in by the same feelings.

Liverpool took another significant step towards a first Premier League title with a 2-0 win over rivals Manchester United, with goals from Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah opening up a 16-point gap over second place.

The Reds still have a game in hand over closest challengers Manchester City, and the nature of the win meant enough confidence crept into the Anfield stands by full-time for the fans to start singing, “We’re gonna win the league.”

While the players maintained their stance of having a game-by-game focus, Klopp admitted to Sky Sports that the fans should be able to start celebrating.

“They can sing that, they have sung that a couple of times in the past I think. l have no problem with that,” he said.

“Everyone should celebrate the situation, apart from us. Nothing has changed, we have the same situation plus three points.

“I will tell you immediately the moment if it feels different, at the moment it doesn’t.

“I have no idea whether we will be caught or not, I don’t care. First and foremost it’s the Premier League. We play Wolves on Thursday, it’s our next exceptional challenge.

“I don’t have enough space in my brain to contemplate anything else.”

Liverpool dominated for large portions of the game, even having two goals disallowed in the first half that would have given them a more comfortable margin of victory.

Klopp’s side also had several chances just after the restart, and the German tactician admitted that the scoreline could have been a lot bigger.

“It’s a big relief, I was really happy with 85-90% of the game, we were brilliant. We dominated the game, especially in the first half. The energy they put on the pitch was incredible.

“On a normal day we would have scored three times in the first half and in the second half until 65 minutes we should have been more clear.

“But then United have obvious quality, played a bit more football and we had to defend. There were little mistakes here and there, we didn’t use possession well enough and so the game stays open.

“Then we scored a wonderful, wonderful goal at the end, a really good feeling.

“What a performance against an opponent with the quality of United, and the setup of United. Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] will say the same, they wanted to annoy us, distract our game, defend and counter attack.

“They had moments when they played football but not too often, the other moments it was difficult to create chances, but the manner we created chances was exceptional.”

Liverpool’s next challenge is to overcome Wolves in midweek, before they can turn their attention away from the title race for once for the FA Cup Fourth Round clash with Shrewsbury Town next weekend.

After that, they have the chance to make use of their game in hand against West Ham, as they close in on a first league title in 30 years.