Jurgen Klopp makes Arsene Wenger point and explains ‘rare positive’ of Liverpool’s season

Jurgen Klopp revealed the emergence of Stefan Bajcetic is a ‘rare positive’ in Liverpool’s below-par season.

The 18-year-old was handed his full Premier League debut in the Reds’ goalless draw against Chelsea on Saturday. It left Liverpool eighth in the Premier League as their chances of qualifying for next season’s Champions League took another hit.

Bajcetic has made significant progress this campaign and is now considered as part of Klopp’s first-team squad. He started ahead of experienced midfielder Fabinho in the Chelsea clash.

And Klopp was impressed with the young Spaniard’s appearance. The Liverpool manager said: “There are not a lot of good things in the situation we are in, but obviously that opens doors and gaps and situations for young players. It is obviously one of the rare positive things, especially Stefan. There was a door, I’m not even sure it was open, but he ran through it and he was exceptional. He does really well in the moment, I think that’s clear.

“We have to be a bit careful with him of course, he’s really young. He had a yellow card and I don’t even know [if] it was his fault, to be 100 per cent honest, but he got a yellow card, so of course he got tired, but [he] was still really good in the game. Each player when he gets tired and is on a yellow card is a risk, and we didn’t want to take that. But, no, he is doing really well.”

On the game, which was the 1,000th of Klopp’s managerial career, he said: “First and foremost, before the game I got a lot of messages [about my 1,00th game] and not all of them were nice.

“I think Arsene Wenger lost his 1,000th game 6-0, so I am really happy that didn't happen. I liked the start in the first half, I liked particularly the start in the second half, so that was good [but] we have to extend these spells. We have to play more football, especially in the first half when we won balls back, when we defended really well, when we were really aggressive and then we gave the balls away too easily. We had other moments where we played pretty well, didn’t get it to create a no-brainer or whatever, but it was good.

“For me, it is clear, in this situation you have to be ready for little steps – and this was a little step today, that's how it is. I expect progress and I think from the last league game [at Brighton] it was progress, definitely, and that's important. I saw us in a lot of moments really compact, really being together, good challenges, but of course the opponent is there as well and sometimes you have to defend them with passion. We didn't do that two weeks ago but today we did, so when you have a block in the last second like Robbo had, that is really important. These things are positives and from there we go.”