HIGHLIGHT – Klopp
Jurgen Klopp admitted his Liverpool side are the “roller coaster” of the Premier League after they beat Arsenal 3-1 on Saturday evening.
Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool have now amassed 19 points from a possible 27 against the top-six teams in the league, despite losing to five teams in bottom half of the table this season.
Roberto Firmino broke the deadlock in the ninth minute at Anfield before Sadio Mane doubled Liverpool’s advantage five minutes before half-time.
Danny Welbeck pulled one back for the Gunners, but Klopp’s side secured the three points in injury time when Georginio Wijnaldum fired home.
“We had a really hard week,” Klopp told a news conference. “Directly after the [Leicester] game, I found a few words and it was not asking for friendships. It was pretty clear.
“Next day, we made the analysis, which was nothing to enjoy for me when I did it and not for the boys when they saw it.
“But there was a point in the week when we actually had to finish the Leicester game. It was absolutely exceptional; we have played and lost games, and not played well in all the games, but in this game [there were] so many bad individual performances and it’s really difficult to win a football game.
“It was frustrating. We are kind of the roller coaster of the league — a lot of ups and, meanwhile, too many downs.
“But only if you are really silly then you let the bad things have more influence on you than the good things. We have to remind ourselves of the good things and we are ready to go again, if you want.
“How you can imagine, when you make an analysis like this and watch training or have training and you see the training, you think: ‘OK, that didn’t help obviously in getting confidence back.’ That’s not the nicest moment. The weather was not too cool, it was rainy in training and then it was not clear that we will perform like we performed tonight.”
Klopp added: “The boys showed again what they are capable of. I’ve said a few times now, I don’t like the fact that inconsistency is part of the deal in development.
“Usually, you win games and you lose against the big teams because at the beginning, when they are at a higher level, they are smarter and more experienced and you lose the games. We’ve chosen another way but it’s still part of the deal and we know that we have to keep on going — and we will.”
Meanwhile, the Liverpool manager says he was not surprised by Arsene Wenger’s decision not to start Alexis Sanchez for the game.
Danny Welbeck and Olivier Giroud started ahead of the the Chilean, who emerged after the interval and provided the assist for Welbeck’s goal in the 57th minute.
“I’m 17 years as a manager, I think. I’m not surprised about any line ups in my life, only if somebody broke his leg last week and starts. Then I think ‘Oh, I want to meet the doctor,’” Klopp joked.
“No, we always make the analysis without knowing who is playing. You can imagine, of course, we made it with Alexis Sanchez in the line-up, but when Giroud is on the pitch then that’s a different game because they cross — I don’t know how often, or more often.
“For us, it was not a big advantage. Alexis had a big impact because when he starts then we could have had better solutions from the beginning.”
