Jurgen Klopp has refused to be drawn on whether or not Liverpool are back in the Premier League title race. Klopp insisted after the 3-2 defeat to Arsenal earlier this month that his team were out of the running for the championship after the Gunners had gone 14 points clear of them at the Emirates.
Jurgen Klopp said: “We are not in the title race. It’s naive to sit here and think that we are nearly there.”
However, back-to-back victories over Manchester City and West Ham United at Anfield in the last few days has put them seven behind Pep Guardiola’s side, who remain firm favourites for the title this season. With Manchester United being entertained by Chelsea on Saturday evening before Newcastle travel to Tottenham on Sunday, the Reds’ lunchtime kick-off at Nottingham Forest presents them with a great chance to catapult themselves back into the top-four mix. Klopp, though, is not quite talking up another chase for the title just yet, as he prepares for Liverpool’s first Premier League visit to the City Ground since 1999 this weekend.
Jurgen Klopp said: “We have no influence on it. We don’t play Man City or Arsenal now, we play all the others if I am right? We have to win every game, our aim is to win the next game and get three points. Honestly, we’ve never had a different aim. The long-term aim, I would really like to rewind the movie a bit and when someone asks me if I am still in the title race and I say ‘yes, of course!’ then people would think ‘my God! Finally he realises he is a bit dumb! We cannot say it because it is not the case. Our aim is to somehow win as many games as possible. If that brings us closer to fight for whatever, then great. At the moment we realise that we are close enough then we will go for it, but what that is I have no idea. Is it the top six? Top four? But each three points brings us closer to the area where we want to be and where we should be. Please don’t think that we don’t have targets or that we are aimless. We are still full of ambition but we have to do it step by step and game by game and that starts at Nottingham.”
