Jürgen Klopp met with the media Friday to discuss Liverpool's upcoming battle with Leicester City on Monday evening May 15th. The boss discussed the rise and fall of the Foxes as a club, what was the moment that sparked Liverpool's six-match winning streak, and Mohamed Salah's 30 goals in all competitions.
Leicester City were the feel-good story of the football world in 2016 as they won the Premier League Title. Now, 7 years later, the Foxes are in a relegation battle, and Klopp expects a big challenge as they battle to stay up.
“It was the first year when I arrived, my first season, Leicester won the league. A special story, a very special story, will stay forever,” Klopp said. “Now the situation is obviously completely different. But what we have to expect is a team who wants to stay in the league and will fight for that with all they have. That's what we have to expect. I told the boys that already at the start of our training week, I said, ‘OK, this is now the real fight and we have to make sure we are ready for that' because [it is] a home game for Leicester and the game after us is I think Newcastle if I'm right, that's not an easy game as well and they need all the points they can get so I expect a super-difficult and super-intense game, to be honest, with big fight and with brilliant footballers on the pitch. That makes it tricky.”
Everyone can see that Liverpool are playing good football at the moment, riding a 6 match-winning streak, but what moment sparked the turnaround from an inconsistent season to one that is seeing the Reds push for a spot in the Champions League?
“ I can't remember which week it was exactly but we had eight or nine days for training between the games and we wanted to use that time to start the new season already, not knowing where it would lead us to but just didn't want to waste more time. And it was a breath of fresh air for all of us, not only the players but for the coaches as well, and since then things changed,” Klopp said. “Sometimes you need to change big things to get a turnaround. Most of the time it's only little things but sometimes you have to change big things. And I think when a coach is in for seven-and-a-half years that's pretty rare; usually in that time some clubs have three, four, five coaches, which is obviously not great but then that means it's always new. We were really successful until last year with a specific way, it's not that we did always the same stuff but it was a way of play we knew about, that it's successful and works out for us. And all of a sudden it didn't work out for us. It was always clear that we have to change things but that was at least one good thing of this season: we had a good reason to change things. Imagine we would have changed everything after we nearly won four trophies and start a new season and then we play bad – that would have been really tricky.”
It seems odd to think that when a player scores 30 goals in a season, it might not be a heralded achievement. But when that player is Mo Salah and he does it with such consistency, there might be some worry that the mark will be underappreciated. Klopp says there are no worries that the Egyptian King will be underappreciated by Liverpool.
“No, not from us, not from the Liverpool supporters, maybe from you (the media). I don't know. he will be an all-time great after he finishes his career, but now he is still in his career and if you see Mo every day there is still a really good few years in his legs and in his body so the numbers will even improve and that's absolutely great. No, we don't overlook it but I can imagine with the question asked that often that you might be guilty to overlook it.”
I really like Klopp's responses in this press conference. He is well aware of Leicester City's history and their struggles this season, so this match will be a battle Klopp also recognizes that a football season is fluid and you can't point to a single moment and say “That's where things changed for us”. It is a lot of small things that made the difference.
