Jurgen Klopp no doubt wishes he had found some way to properly address his center backs this past summer transfer window. The Liverpool Manager expressed his disgust with defense, for conceding bad goals after the Reds were eliminated from the League Cup in the third round, at the hands of Leicester City 2-0.
Liverpool overall dominated the game actually, as they owned possession 70%-30%, and generated 21 shots. However, they just couldn’t finish their chances and the central defense was a sieve.
Liverpool knew they had to upgrade that position this summer, and they just didn’t get it done. In his post match news conference, Jurgen Klopp had harsh words for his defense.
“We should have scored three. As long as you leave games open, you have to defend,” Klopp said.
“We always have to defend these situations better. The second ball after the corner, it’s close but it’s not offside, so we need to make it more clear that it’s offside. The only thing you can do is to push up; we didn’t. With the second one, it is a throw-in again. Everyone can imagine we know how to defend them but obviously we don’t do it, because always somebody else is doing it. That’s how it is, it doesn’t feel too cool but it’s the truth.”
“We are still a good football team, I see it, but unfortunately it doesn’t feel at the moment because it’s a cup competition. We wanted to go into the next round and nobody is interested who plays the better first half.”
“Everyone was interested in who goes through. We are not a team in the next round for some good reasons, but that we concede like this, that makes me really, really sick. That’s hard.”
“The reaction, yes, you saw a young team playing one-twos on the left wing when we are 2-0 down, then they make a counter-attack, these are mistakes that I can live with because the two boys put together are 34 or something, so that can happen, but defending set-pieces is a thing, it’s not the first ball obviously, we always had problems with this, now it’s the second or third even. And the throw-in…”
“To be really honest, it feels really hard at the moment to go out after a performance like the first half but that is what we have to expect because we should be able to make seven or eight changes and still play football, that’s cool, good, but if you concede goals like that it makes it really difficult.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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