Klopp gives thoughts on Sturridge miss as he sounds PSG warning

Jurgen Klopp refused to blame Daniel Sturridge after his miss proved crucial on the way to Liverpool’s surprise 2-0 defeat to Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League.

With Roberto Firmino left on the bench, Sturridge was afforded the rare chance to start up front, but he fluffed his lines when presented with a brilliant opportunity after 16 minutes.

And Liverpool were made to pay when just moments later, Red Star scored the opener and then added a second before half-time as the Reds suffered a costly defeat.

Klopp admitted Sturridge’s miss proved crucial for Liverpool and admitted the outcome could have been different had it gone in.

“The first big chance to Daniel was a very big one,” Klopp said. “We gave them too many set-pieces. They scored with a header after the corner and the second goal was out of the blue.

“If – big if – we had scored early the game would have changed but we didn’t.”

Asked to justify his selections after the match, Klopp explained: “It made sense to make a few changes, a few we had to make and a few we wanted to.

“‘In the end, it’s easy to say it didn’t work out. Of course, we need to make sure it will not happen again otherwise it will be difficult because the next game is already an away game again and the last one is a very difficult home game against Napoli.

“We have to make sure in Paris we do better. There were a lot of moments when we could get in control of the game and we didn’t do it, we made the wrong decisions.

“I don’t think that’s anything to do with [playing] away or home, it just happened. We will talk about that and will do it better 100 per cent, but for tonight we can’t change it anymore, unfortunately.”

Klopp was not exactly enthralled by his side’s display and listed multiple reasons why they had not been at their best in Serbia.

“We gave the ball away and that’s not cool in a game like this, an atmosphere like this, a situation like this. You then have to play your best football in a negative mood. It was a blow,” he added.

“We tried to change in the second half, we had some situations. Very dominant, didn’t give a lot of counter-attacks away but we had moments we had ‘nearly’ chances but the biggest chances were in the last two or three minutes.”

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