Jurgen Klopp has insisted that “everyone was suffering” on Liverpool’s journey home from Leicester on Tuesday.
Jurgen Klopp said: “Everyone was really suffering and on the way home it wasn’t like someone wanted loud music on the plane or something like that, we were hit by it. That’s how it is, we didn’t expect it, but we went through it. We now have another chance and that is pretty much the good thing about the English football schedule. You play pretty much all the time so you have the chance to be pretty quick to show a reaction, yes, I don’t see any mental reasons for why we shouldn’t strike back from that performance. Physical reasons, I don’t know exactly.”
Jurgen Klopp added: “I don’t think that Chelsea have had a problem with motivation for one second this season. They look, for me, for a long, long time this year, as a really, really strong team with a lot of options to change. They are a top squad, definitely. I am pretty sure Thomas [Tuchel] saw it exactly the same. Meanwhile it looks a bit different, squad-wise. The team can always line up with good players but the amount of games you have to play when you don’t have your full squad is just really tricky. The problem is not the motivation. It was not for us, it was not for Chelsea, I am pretty sure the problem we have is just the quality of Man City. We have a couple of years now when we could really catch up with them and get close enough. The year we were nearly there (2019) and then we were there…we understand how big that was. We really understand it. Now it is not so easy just because you won the Champions League the year before, by the way in the final against the opponent, it is not so easy to just say ‘OK, now we win the league’. We know how special it was what the boys did two years ago, but we still give it a try. There are no chances for guarantees, but we will really give it a go and I am pretty sure Chelsea will do the same.”
