Jurgen Klopp showed his frustration after Liverpool suffered a disappointing draw against West Ham at The London Stadium. He urged his team to raise up their game to enhance their chance of winning the Premier League title that has eluded for three decades now.
The draw puts Liverpool just 3 points above the second placed Manchester City who will top the log for the first time since December, at least for now, if they win against Everton at Goodison Park on Wednesday night. Tottenham Hotspur comes closely third with only 13 games left.
The team showed signs of sloppiness almost the entire match with Sadio Mane scoring a controversial goal as James Milner was offside in the build up to the goal. Liverpool’s momentum was lost after Michail Antonio canceled Mane’s opener.
“If you want to be top at the end of the season, you have to deal with much tougher situations than we had today”, Klopp said in a post-match interview. He also alluded that the title race has shifted from a two-race to a three-horse race. “For the last five, six, seven weeks, we talked about a two-horse race but now Tottenham are in behind … For me they are 100% in the race”, he added.
"I said we could have played better tonight, 100 per cent, but it’s the situation and it’s not perfect."
Jürgen Klopp felt a point was a deserved outcome for #LFC in tonight's 1-1 draw with @WestHamUtd. https://t.co/LqTReW0vZd
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 4, 2019
Klopp also indicated that the injury list could be taking a toll on their team. With Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joe Gomez and Dejan Lovren unavailable, Klopp pointed out that the injuries could have disrupted their rhythm. James Milner and Virgil van Dijk started despite not recovering fully from a virus infection.
“We lost one game all season. The team is doing well. It’s a tough moment. Milly was ill. Maybe he is still ill. Virg was out three or four days and lost four kilos. Could we have played better? 100%. But the games are difficult,” Klopp said while adding, “I don’t moan about it. It’s just a fact. It’s not an excuse. We could have played better tonight. Milly came back but he didn’t train yesterday. The preparation for the game is far from being perfect but we still got a point.”