Jurgen Klopp gives verdict on Curtis Jones’ performance after surprise Liverpool recall

Jurgen Klopp was pleased with the performance of Curtis Jones after his surprise Liverpool recall.

The Reds manager opted to ring the changes for last night’s clash against Chelsea. On the back of a 4-1 loss to Manchester City, Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson, Harvey Elliott and Cody Gakpo were all dropped while Virgil van Dijk was ill.

Jones was given a rare opportunity, having not started a game since the 1-0 loss at Nottingham Forest in October. He’d also been left out of the previous two Premier League match-day squads.

The midfielder helped Liverpool earn a 0-0 draw against Chelsea, although chances of a top-four finish have further diminished.

Asked about Jones display in his post-match press conference, Klopp replied: “Good. Absolutely good. Until he lost power a little bit, but that's now completely normal. [The] midfield was OK, but... if you go back and look [at] all the chances Chelsea had [it] was after we lose the ball in the moment where we cannot lose the ball. It's not that offensively we lose the ball, we win the ball and, I am not sure who, the defender pass the ball just into their feet and the next ball is not to defend. It's just not, if you lose these balls, there's no formation in the world. There we have to improve, but again step by step. Tonight I really thought we were much more compact in a lot of moments. We put much more pressure on the decisive player than we did in the last game, stuff like this.

“So, no, different opponent next game, different jobs to do, but we will find a way to cause them problems and that's what you have to be first and foremost. Each development [and] each success starts with being difficult to beat and we have to be difficult to beat again. If we are that, you build confidence, if you build confidence you are much closer to your best self than we are in the moment. That will not happen just like this. It is not possible without super hard work and we will do that.”

Liverpool arrested a run of three straight defeats against Chelsea - although they did ride their luck. The west London side had two goals disallowed while Mateo Kovacic, Joao Felix and Kai Havertz all spurned chances.

The Reds, on the other hands, struggled to create any real clear-cut opportunities.

On whether the result was a point gained or two dropp, Klopp said: Gained. It’s an away game; this was not the most spectacular 0-0 I ever saw. I saw two of them – Liverpool v Chelsea – last year, the two finals, [they were] absolutely insane. Very similar teams I would say, but completely different football because of a different level of confidence for both teams. This was the fight we have to show tonight, this was the way we have to start our development again. We cannot now hope – because we did a couple of things that were absolutely not like they should have been – that we fixed it overnight. I decided to make six changes, that always against a good football team can be a problem.

“Three of them in the last line as well, which is obviously a real challenge for the players and we could see in the first few minutes they went direct, playing behind the last line, [and] we had a few problems there. Apart from that, they had their chances after we lost balls in moments where you just cannot lose balls. It’s now a problem we keep a little bit, that's not good, but the recovery after that, the desire to sort the situation, I liked. Nil-nil, not the most spectacular one but a step for us. A little step, but a step in the right direction.”