Jurgen Klopp makes brutally honest Liverpool criticism claim amid Man City and Arsenal title race
Liverpool are two points adrift of Man City after a 1-0 defeat by Crystal Palace at Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp admits that criticism his Liverpool team is receiving is ‘absolutely right’ after slipping up again in the Premier League title race.
The Reds’ chances of being crowned champions in Klopp’s final season as manager took another hit. After drawing 2-2 against Manchester United last week, Liverpool suffered a shock 1-0 loss against Crystal Palace at Anfield.
Having also been beaten 3-0 by Atalanta in the Europa League quarter-final first leg, the Reds’ hopes of giving Klopp the perfect farewell are now in serious peril. Liverpool are two points behind Manchester City in the Premier League and are level on points with Arsenal but have a worse goal difference of eight.
The Merseyside outfit had enough chances in the second half to defeat Palace but were again profligate in the final third - and they’ve handed the initiative to City.
Asked about dropping five points in the past two league games, Klopp replied: “It's easy, I understand 100 per cent, of course you have to ask these questions – what does it mean for the title race and stuff like this. I am not dumb, I know that. The answer is pretty easy: if we play like we did in the first half, why should we win the league? If you play like in the second half, we can win football games. So if we can win football games then we will see how many we can win. We have to be around when the other guys now struggle, if they struggle, so that's how it is. For us, obviously we have to win football games anyway.
“We now have a string of four away games, if I'm right, and that would have been tough anyway, it will be tough and we know that. That's clear that we have to deal with that now and that's the easy thing. There is nothing else really to say. The criticism in these moments is completely fine and absolutely right, it's all about how we deal with it. In the first half we didn't deal particularly well with the situation, but second half we pulled ourselves together and should have won the game but didn't do, I saw the result. That's it.”