Jurgen Klopp says he will treat the Europa League with respect next season if Liverpool miss out on the top four. The Reds are currently four points behind Chelsea, who occupy the final spot for Europe’s premier competition, and could trail by seven when they come to face Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon. Klopp, though, says his side will take the Europa League seriously if they do end up on the outside of the biggest club competition in world football next term.
Jurgen Klopp said: “Since I am in England we have only played in the Europa League once and we went to the final (in 2016), so it was good apart from the final. Last night I saw a Man United team enjoying the Europa League a lot! It depends obviously which competition you are in and the circumstances around it, but it was always like this. We will not think ‘my God now we have to play that’. No, no, no, it is a great competition and I haven’t thought it through to the end because I know even though it is not likely that there is a little chance [for the Champions League] as well, so let’s give a try and think about what happens next season.”
With time running out for Klopp’s side, he accepts the need for other teams around them to drop points in the final three weeks of the campaign. But the Liverpool manager is refusing to throw in the towel just yet with 15 points still left to chase.
Jurgen Klopp added: “Five wins won’t be enough, it depends how the other teams do obviously, but without five wins we don’t have a chance. If we are five points behind with 15 to play for, why would we write it off? Man United still think they can become champions, rightly so, so we think we can still go to the Champions League, but we need results in other games. We know that. Without winning your own games you won’t go anywhere, we are not that naive enough, but it’s just we don’t think like that. We just have one game to go, this is the most important game of the season, we play United at the weekend, so let’s go for it, don’t think about anything else, and make sure you play your best game.”
It’s the first time since the end of the 2016/17 campaign that Liverpool have not been involved in the hunt for trophies in the closing weeks of the campaign. Klopp says he does not lament the fortunes of other teams, however, and believes his side will once more be challenging next season when an injury list subsides in the summer.
Jurgen Klopp said: “I think that would be really weak [to think like that]. We are responsible for what happens for us and in the last few years we have been in semis and finals and fighting for the league title, so I don’t know if other teams felt bad because of us. I wish for them not and I am like this. [Other teams] deserve the position they are in, that’s football, that’s fair. They won an awful lot of games, Man United turned it around last night and they have doe that 20 times already this year. We will challenge them again next year but right now we can only finish our season, play our season as good as possible and we have nothing to do with semi-finals and finals, we know that, but I don’t feel bad because of that. I’ve had my bad moments in the season for other reasons but not because other teams are winning more games than us, that is not my problem. I only have the opponent that specific weekend. I don’t look at the table and think ‘oh my God, Man City [winning] again, Man United are back on track’ all these kinds of things. Life is too short for these kinds of worries and thoughts.”
