Jurgen Klopp will set aside his frustrations at being denied the funds to make new signings and remains confident he can turn round Liverpool‘s stuttering fortunes with the squad he has – starting with Sunday’s FA Cup clash at Manchester United.
With Virgil Van Dijk and Joe Gomez out with long-term injuries and Joel Matip injury-prone, Klopp admits that “in an ideal world” he would buy a new defender, even though the recent problems experienced by last season’s runaway champions have been about their failure to score goals rather than conceding them.
But the manager has been told by the club’s American owners there is no money available in this transfer window because of the huge financial losses suffered during the pandemic and he will have to work with what he has got.
He insists there is no rift with the board and will just concentrate on working harder on the training ground to try to rejuvenate a team that has inexplicably become goal-shy, scoring only once in their last five Premier League games.
“I’m not a five-year-old kid anymore and if I don’t get what I want then I start crying,” said Klopp.
“Most of the time in my life I didn’t get what I wanted, to be honest. We all are probably pretty much used to that.
“And it’s not like that anyway. I’m responsible for a big part of this football club but there are people who are responsible for the whole thing, and I cannot make their decisions. I know they are with us, I know they want to support us and they do.
“Of course, somebody else is making the decisions about transfers. It was always like this. If people are surprised about that I can’t change that.
“It is just the situation we have, we discuss it pretty much on a daily basis, you think about could we improve something or not, and then I make recommendations but I cannot spend the money. So that it how it is.”
Defensive reinforcements would allow Fabinho, in particular, and Jordan Henderson, who has also been used in defence, to return to their normal midfield roles and restore the intensity and creativity that has been lacking in Liverpool’s attacking play during a worrying Premier League run of five games without a win that has cast serious doubts over whether they can achieve their dream of back-to-back titles.
Klopp added: “Yes, signing a centre half would help, 100 per cent.
“Would we score more goals with a centre-half? I’m not sure. Would it give us a little bit more stability in specific moments? Probably yes. But a new centre-half on Thursday night [in the 1-0 defeat to Burnley] wouldn’t have won us the game.
“Of course, we know what we would do in an ideal world, but the world is not ideal, not only for us. We have to deal with the situation. For me it’s just not that important because everything is on the table, all the things are clear and we just have to work on the football stuff.
“What we have to do is improve the football in a decisive area with this squad. That’s my job, not sitting here being disappointed or frustrated with some decisions because I’m not.
“We believe 100 per cent we can change it with this squad. We don’t go and say ‘if we don’t get this or that, then we cannot perform’ or whatever.”
Klopp knows there needs to be an immediate improvement with Liverpool facing a critical week of three away games – Sunday’s FA Cup fourth-round tie at Old Trafford is followed by two league trips to London to play Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham on Thursday and improving West Ham next Sunday.
He insists his squad can turn it round by better decision-making and being more clinical in the final third of the pitch.
“We are very self-critical,” he said. “On Thursday we had 28 shots and only six on target. I’ve heard we’ve had 90 shots in the last four games and scored one goal. That’s obviously a number we don’t want to have. We have to finish the situations off.”
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Liverpool news, interviews and features
More on Liverpool
- The conversation that convinced Werner to reject Liverpool and sign for Chelsea
- Meet the £11.75m star signed by Liverpool to act as Robertson’s understudy
- ‘The Kop went wild!’: Remembering when Liverpool last won the title
- Barnes exclusive: ‘Could I have played in this Liverpool team? Great players fit into any era’
- How Liverpool’s homegrown champion normalised his own brilliance
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/39bfAnb
Post a Comment