Jürgen Klopp went into great detail concerning his club's performance in a 3-1 loss to Brentford during his post-match press conference. In spite of the scoreline, the boss found some positives about the match and was also honest about the things that need correcting. He also addressed Liverpool's position in the Premier League standings.
For the first 5 minutes of the match, it looked as if it might be Liverpool's day. Darwin Núñez drew a foul that resulted in a yellow card in the 2nd minute while putting a shot on an empty net in the 3rd that was blocked away by a Brentford defender. Then came the own goal from Ibrahima Konaté that changed the entire complexion of the match.
“The start in the game was really good; we had top chances, could have – [and] should have – scored there already before Brentford had their first corner,” Klopp said. “I know people don't want to hear it, but they use everything in these moments and that's why it is really difficult to defend. I have to watch it back, but I am pretty sure we could have probably won the header in the first-post area. Then the ball goes through, Ibou couldn't see the ball when he arrived there, gets it on his knee and the ball is in. You know before the game they are really strong there, you cannot avoid all corners and these kinds of things.”
Even though Brentford had 3 goals to their credit, the Bees could have easily had more and Klopp admitted as much to the media.
“The way they play is clear. And the defending around the second goal didn't surprise me, it's just not right. They just chipped the ball in behind and we can deny the cross,” he said. “But we didn't do that and that's why this goal is the one we should have defended. You cannot defend long balls all time. They were super-direct – that limits them in some aspects but for these kind of games it gives them always the chance to create real chaos and that's what they do and they organize that extremely well, all my respect, so that's good. But you cannot defend that clear-cut all the time.”
Liverpool squandered a chance to move up to 5th place in the standings and while supporters and media love to focus on a club's position. Klopp prefers to take a game-by-game approach, however.
“We can change our position only by winning football games and tonight is obviously the opposite,” Klopp said. “We didn't gain any points, cannot take anything from it. We have to win football games and we have a lot of players not available at the moment, you can see that in changes. When we change it's now not that we can just throw in offensive players and stuff like this to give somebody a rest or say, 'OK, come on, you did enough for today.' So they all pretty much have to fight through. That's the situation and nothing else.”
It feels as if this team takes one step forward and then two steps back so many times this season. It seemed as if Liverpool had corrected some of their defensive issues, but Brentford exposed them, particularly on set pieces Klopp acknowledged that I also like Klopp's optimism that he was able to find some positives in the match. All too often, we supporters see nothing but doom and gloom after a loss. Maybe we should take a lesson in optimism from the boss.
