Klopp Talk: “To Stay In The Game Is The Best News We Can Get”

Finally, the end of the international break is upon us. Meeting Southampton yesterday was nervy, to say the least. After all, our hold on the top spot of the table was tenuous, and we’ve already gone over how many us have been preparing for the other shoe to drop. Would this be the inevitable game that we lost? Losing to Southampton wouldn’t be so bad, maybe. They’re a decent side with a lot to pay back, considering we’ve poached more than a couple of their great players. Thankfully, that didn’t come to pass, and Liverpool headed home with one point instead of a possible three - a decent appearance against a well organized team.

“It was a really good performance against a difficult-to-play side – Southampton are one of the best organised teams in the league,” Jürgen Klopp said to the press, post-match. “First half, you could see we thought, ‘It’s really difficult’. We were prepared for a difficult game but then in the game it feels differently, obviously. I’m fine with the performance, absolutely. We could have scored and maybe we should have scored – but that’s how football is... Even then, to stay in the game is the best news we can get. I’m not ‘happy’, but I’m fine.”

The match yesterday saw Liverpool firing off 15 shots, with only two of those on goal, and keeping the Saints from getting a single shot on target out of the three they took. Not a great day for Liverpool, as we’ve seen great days, but a serviceable one. A patient one.

“I said to my boys at half-time, we have already played more the game we wanted to play than they could - usually they play differently, they have the ball much more, they leave two or three players up for counter-attacks. That was not often [they did that] today because we did what we did,” Klopp continued. “We were patient enough, but not clear enough in the first half. In the second half, we did better and when you play out a draw it’s better that you should have won than should have lost because of the performance, so I am fine.”

Not the desired result, to be sure, but Liverpool remain unbeaten in the last ten league matches, and that’s nothing to moan about. Patience is a virtue, after all, in football and in life.