Manager refuses to put blame on missing players
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has refused to blame his team’s recent drop in form on absent players.
The Reds have one of their biggest games of the season coming up on Wednesday against Southampton in the 2nd leg of the EFL Cup semi-finals. They go into the game trailing 1-0 from the previous leg at St Mary’s.
As well as that loss, they lost 3-2 at home to Swansea on Saturday in a shock result- their first home loss in all competitions in over 12 months.
Overally, they have won just one of their last 6 matches, with the poor form seeming to coincide with the injury and eligibilty controversy of centre-back Joel Matip and the absence of winger Sadio Mane through AFCON.
Star man Philippe Coutinho has recent returned from a 6-week spell on the sidelines, and his performance against Swansea demonstrated that he was lacking match sharpness.
“We missed Sadio, we missed Phil for a time and we missed Joel Matip. As much as I like Sadio, it’s not that we had problems because we missed Sadio,” Klopp said.
“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”
By Ben Kelly – @benkelly_10
