[ad_1]
Jürgen Klopp lamented Liverpool’s missed opportunities in Wednesday’s draw with Newcastle United, but described the performance as one to build on.
The Reds played a goalless draw with the Magpies at St. James’ Park, where local goalkeeper Karl Darlow made key saves, mostly to deny Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino.
The result increased Klopp’s male lead at the Premier League summit to three points in his last outing of 2020.
And while the coach was disappointed that his team couldn’t turn the opportunities they created into goals, he was satisfied with the display and the reaction of his players.
Read a transcript of Klopp’s post-match press conference below …
On whether he’s happy with the performance …
I’m not happy with the result but the game has already been played. I’m not too frustrated or something like that: it’s football, if you don’t take your chances it’s hard to win a match. But you can have a draw with a bad performance or you can have a draw with a good performance, and tonight we had a draw with a good performance. We just don’t take opportunities and that’s why I’m fine with the game. That’s.
On the contrast to the 7-0 win at Crystal Palace …
Look, not scoring is a concern if you don’t believe. This is how it is. If you believe, it’s just momentum, it’s for now. But if you keep creating, you will get points, that’s all. I know we will dial again, that is not our problem at the moment. We needed to show a reaction from the second half against West Brom because in that game we lost the plot a bit in the second half, it seemed to me that we were 1-0 down, not 1-0 up. Tonight was a very good reaction about it, without getting the result. But we all know it: you win this game 1-0 and everyone is over the moon. And we should have won it at least 1-0, but we didn’t. That is what we have to accept. But I can work with this performance, that’s important. I can work with the things I saw tonight. We can build on that, we don’t have to massively change in the next three or four days and say, ‘Okay, everything is going wrong, we have to try to compete in a different way.’ That’s why I’m fine, that’s all.
On the number of draws in the Premier League and your opinion on the reasons …
No, no idea. In our case, because we do not dial often enough. I don’t know about the other games.
On what your New Year’s wish will be …
Traditionally, I am now 53 years old and for about 30 years, I always wish on New Years for my family to stay healthy. That never happened with more conviction than this year because that’s all that worries me. All other problems we can fix, but this, what happened in 2020, is a new experience for all of us. I didn’t need it, we all got it and now we figure it out and we still have to deal with it. We have to maintain discipline. 2020 had a climax and a lot of challenges: becoming champions and all the rest were big, big challenges. We will face a few more challenges in life, but I’m pretty happy that 2020 is almost over, to be honest. Like I said, other than becoming champions, it is not a year where I think much about the future.
On the return of Thiago Alcantara as a substitute in the second part …
In fact, we signed Thiago because we thought he was a good player, so you can imagine that we would like to have him in the team. That’s clear. What the other guys did in the time that he wasn’t available is absolutely incredible. James Milner, for example, played a great game tonight in midfield. Really. So yeah it’s good [he is back], is a super player. I think the 20 minutes, 12 rounds were brilliant and then he felt the intensity, but that’s normal. He trained exactly twice with the team. There is still some physical work to be done, still some rhythm to be achieved. Shaq is back and that’s, by the way, the best news tonight – the guys are back and from what I know at this point, no one was injured tonight, which is a huge thing. That means we can probably go with the same team to Southampton.
