Jurgen Klopp Liverpool
Jurgen Klopp has made the brutal admission Liverpool cannot compete with Manchester City over the long term as the two teams prepare to cross swords once again. The Reds entertain City on Sunday having already fallen 13 points behind the champions after winning just two of their opening eight Premier League matches to stand in 10th place. Liverpool have been the only team to realistically threaten City’s dominance during recent years, lifting the title in 2020 and finishing just a point adrift of the eventual champions in 2019 and last season. But Klopp believes City’s seemingly limitless financial backing from their Abu Dhabi owners – similar to that of other state-owned clubs Paris Saint-Germain and, most recently, Newcastle United – is an obvious advantage impossible to ignore. Asked what Liverpool can do to keep pace with City,
Jurgen Klopp said: “Oh, you won’t like the answer. You will not like the answer, and you (the journalists) all have the answer already. Nobody can compete with City in that. You have the best team in the world and you put in the best striker on the market, no matter what it costs you just do it. I know City will not like it, nobody will like it, you’ve asked the question but you know the answer. What does Liverpool do? We cannot act like them. It is not possible. Not possible. It is just clear and again you know the answer. There are three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially. It’s legal and everything, fine. But they can do what they want. They will say ‘yeah but we have…’ but it’s exactly the fact. We have to look at it (and say) ‘We need that and we need that and we have to look here and make it younger, and here a prospect and here a talent and that is what we have to do’. You have to compete (on the pitch) with them. It is not a problem at all for me, it’s like it is. Don’t ask me that question (about competing with City) because you always open this discussion and it’s me telling you. But you all know it, you should know. It is not possible to deal with that and it will be like this. I heard now that at Newcastle somebody (sporting director Dan Ashworth) said ‘there is no ceiling for this club’. Yes! He is right. He is absolutely right. There is no ceiling for Newcastle. Congratulations, but some other clubs have ceilings.”
Klopp must decide whether to keep faith in the new formation used in the last two matches or revert to a 4-3-3 on Sunday, with Thiago Alcantara, Andy Robertson, Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah all expected to be recalled having been benched in the midweek 7-1 Champions League win at Rangers.
Ibrahima Konate, who made his first start of the season at Ibrox after a knee problem, was absent from training on Friday having been substituted towards the end of the match. Should the French defender be absent, it would hand Klopp a selection headache with centre-back alternative Joe Gomez having played at right-back in midweek with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Calvin Ramsay sidelined. Joel Matip, Naby Keita, Luis Diaz and Arthur Melo are all out.
