Jurgen Klopp was in bullish mood after watching Liverpool beat Chelsea 2-0 at Anfield as he called critics of his team ‘idiots’.
A Sadio Mane header and Mohamed Salah wonder-goal from outside the box ensured that Liverpool won against Chelsea to return to the top of the Premier League title ahead of Manchester City.
Although Liverpool are now two points clear of City, Pep Guardiola’s side will retain the title if they win their remaining five Premier League matches of the season as they have a game in hand over the league leaders.
Should Liverpool miss out on an inaugural Premier League title by such fine margins, people will inevitably pick out games in which they dropped points as key moments that helped to define the title race.
Klopp, however, insisted that such an exercise would be ‘bull****’ and insisted that Liverpool will do everything in their power to win their final four games.
Speaking after the win over Chelsea, Klopp said: ‘The biggest challenge for us is always facing the world outside, you and other people. We don’t think like that. We play our game.
‘If City lose today, and we find out five minutes before the game, somebody tells us ‘City lost!’ but that’s not a help. You lose your focus then.
‘We only try to collect as many points as possible. What is it now, 85? Four games to play. 97. Let’s try. And if that’s enough, then perfect. If not, we cannot change it. And we didn’t lose it here or there or whatever.
‘Very smart people will come out and say ‘yeah, if you would have won against Leicester you would be champions’. It’s all bull****. People and idiots bring something like this up.’
In the build-up to the game, Klopp insisted that it was ‘not important’ to talk about Steven Gerrard’s infamous slip which led to Demba Ba’s goal in the meeting between Liverpool and Chelsea in 2013-14 – a moment that had a huge impact on that season’s title race.
There was a moment on Sunday when it looked as though another slip by a Liverpool player, this time Andrew Robertson, could have consequences, although Gonzalo Higuain was unable to capitalise as Ba had done.
And Klopp felt that moment banished the demons of 2014, saying: ‘By the way, on this point, we can finally close the slipping book. Robbo slipped and nothing happened, so it’s not a Liverpool thing. Done.
‘I’m so proud of what the boys did today. I loved, loved, loved the atmosphere, it was outstanding. Let us try and do that seven more times and see what we get for it.’
