Klopp: why Liverpool FC were not ideal at Manchester City

Liverpool vice-captain James Milner has claimed that he and his teammates need to improve their home form after earning some impressive victories on the road.

Liverpool have now beaten English Premier League champions Chelsea and City in successive away games, and while they lie six points away from Champions League places, manager Klopp believes that vital self-belief is being forged.

They became the third team to beat Man City in 2015/16, joining Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United, comfortably dispatching a Manuel Pellegrini-managed side which entered the weekend sitting imperiously atop the Premier League table. You’ve now got Daniel Sturridge who’s approaching full fitness and if he’s fully fit, you would expect him to start because he is Liverpool’s best finisher when he’s fully fit and firing. But we had to change some things. It’s one of those days when we are not good and there’s nothing to add, that’s it. We were not good enough to compete and that’s it.

“It was an incredible game”, Lovren told the Liverpool Echo.

Maybe that’s why Klopp explained the win over Manchester City wasn’t a destination in itself but a sign of his team’s ongoing development – and he stopped the party after 24 hours. “I was speaking to the boys, and they were disappointed, and were complimentary about how we played, but they know they can play a lot better than that”.

We are not at the end of this way, it’s a long way we have to go. We are Liverpoolpic.twitter.com/1VJ2C8f4Bq – Alberto Moreno Perez (@lfc18alberto) November 21, 2015Buzzing!!! what a performance #YNWApic.twitter.com/1kKTX0mAgp – Nathaniel Clyne (@Nathaniel_Clyne) November 21, 2015It wasn’t a good performance on our part, but I don’t blow wins or losses out of proportion. “It’s normal in football if you have quality, and we have quality, that you are in the lead”.

“At half-time, the lads [were] a little surprised we are in the lead”.

While this result was very much a team effort, some of the interplay between the Reds samba stars was nothing short of sublime.

“Hopefully that can change and the boys can take confidence from the results we have had”. This victory over City was a triumph for Klopp’s “gegenpressing” ethos – the quick switch from attack to a high press – as City were cast as hapless patsies who made countless errors and gave up possession cheaply.