Following a 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace, Liverpool’s hopes of winning the Premier League title were severely damaged.
The Premier League title chances of Liverpool were dealt a blow, but Jurgen Klopp refused to attribute it to his players’ weariness.
Manchester City now leads the table by two points ahead of the Reds after their 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace at Anfield. Arsenal, on the other hand, has a superior goal differential of eight, despite being level on points with Liverpool in second place.
Liverpool had a dismal first half performance versus Palace and a plethora of squandered opportunities in the second half. Following a shocking 3-0 loss to Atalanta in the first leg of their Europa League quarterfinal, Klopp’s team has now dropped their last two games.
The Reds’ team is thin because of the numerous injuries they have had to deal with this season. Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allister may be suffering the effects of their hectic schedules, Klopp acknowledged, but Liverpool needs to figure out why their recent performances have fallen short.
But he was encouraged by the performance of Curtis Jones, who recently came back from an ankle injury while Trent Alexander-Arnold came off the bench to make his first outing after a knee issue.
Liverpool manager Klopp said: “Did Wataru [Endo] and Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] now play a little bit too much in the last few weeks? Maybe, they were the two most-used [players], especially Macca. The other guys came back from injury. I would say Curtis [Jones] today was really good. Dom [Szoboszlai] came back from injury, stuff like this, kind of rhythm. I think for the situation Trent [Alexander-Arnold] is in, that was really good but I don’t think he could now play 120 minutes, let me say it like that. Robbo [Andy Robertson] came back from injury.
It’s a kind of a circumstance that certain players had to play a lot and some players were constantly interrupted because of all these kinds of things. If we discover the true solution at this point, it’s actually not that interesting to us. We only need to make sure that we discover a means to defeat the particular opponent in front of us and forget about our previous thoughts, including whether or not they are injured. This is how it always is.
As a manager, you come across a lot of justifications for winning, like, ‘This was wonderful, this was great.’ Finding these things becomes more difficult after a loss; they may be clear, but it’s not a matter of sticking your finger in one thing at a time.
For us, the answer is to constantly play with great unity on the field. We got to where we are because we were operating like an absolute machine against the ball, and that’s what we must be. We are playing with rhythm and momentum at that point, making it hard for the opposition and making us feel much better. These boys are also capable of playing football at a high level. It’s fantastic that they shown their ability to handle a challenging circumstance today. We lost the game, though, and we had entirely different plans for this day, so it doesn’t feel good at all. However, as I mentioned earlier, that is what we now have to deal with.
