Jürgen Klopp continues to look on the bright side after Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat in Barcelona, insisting there will be no hangover at Newcastle on Saturday evening and denying he might be fated to spend his life narrowly missing out against superior opposition.
The Liverpool manager has taken two teams to Champions League finals and lost, is in danger of losing the league title to Manchester City with a points total that would have won the Premier League most seasons, and by some metrics could claim to have outplayed Barcelona despite the shattering outcome at the Camp Nou, though he dismissed any suggestion he might feel cursed or doomed to failure.
“I don’t think that way at all,” Klopp said. “I’m healthy, my family is healthy, I do the job I love so that makes me already a very fortunate person. In football if you want to win you have to accept that there are occasions when you might lose. There is no need to dwell too long on the last game, and in any case we did some really good stuff in Barcelona. The result might not have been the one we wanted but the performance was good. We didn’t have to give the players a hug or anything like that; we can still have positive thoughts about the game.”
Klopp revealed he rested Jordan Henderson in midweek – at least that was his intention, before Naby Keïta’s injury – because he wanted to keep him fresh for the remaining league games. “Everyone seems surprised because it was such an important game, but we had three games in six days to think about and they are all important,” he said. “Hendo was the only midfielder who had played five games in a row so I took him out. Naby hadn’t played the same number of games as the others but then he got injured anyway.”
Keïta’s season is over after he ruptured an adductor muscle. The midfielder faces two months on the sidelines that will put him out of the Africa Cup of Nations. “Naby has been very unlucky – it is a high-grade injury,” Klopp said. “The tendon is ruptured, so that’s bad news for us and bad news for Guinea as well. They aren’t regular starters in the African tournament and I know being in Egypt next month was a big target for him.”
Liverpool will finish second if Manchester City win their remaining two games, though with the points, goals difference and goals scored totals quite close there is a remote possibility of results leaving the two sides dead level at close of play. If points, goal difference and goals scored are all equal a play-off would take place under Premier League rules. “I must admit that would be a fitting way for the season to end,” Klopp said. “We could make a bit of a showdown of it, like High Noon, but I doubt it will happen.”
