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Immediately after the final whistle, Liverpool fans started to do what football supporters do best. How did this happen, we asked ourselves, and proceeded to pick apart every mistake and blunder and lack of coverage we could find. The game would’ve been a draw, could’ve been a draw, had it not been for Karius losing the ball that led to Nathan Aké’s game winner in stoppage time. That much is clear, all the way to Jamie Carragher. Jurgen Klopp, however, isn’t having any of it.
“If you make mistakes, you get criticised. That’s what happens in life, so I have no problem with that. So if people want to say we’re blind, silly, not good enough, then do it. We missed chances today but do we have good strikers? Yes we do. And the last goal was not easy for a goalkeeper. It says nothing about him as a goalkeeper. It happens,” Klopp said post-match.
Truly, it’s unfair to blame Liverpool’s collapse on one man, especially one who only has so much space to control the game. It’s also unrealistic not to realize that Liverpool were bound to lose a game somewhere. Does it still suck? Surely. Is it better that we lost today instead of next month to say, City? Absolutely. Klopp knows this too.
“I knew there would be moments like this. There is no attitude or character problem here. We have been 100% before now, and we were 99% today, but it’s quite simple to go back up to 100%. No one is born a winner. Not in the first two or three months [of a project]. You have to learn and we must learn from this,” He continued. “Things like this can happen – you don’t like it and it still feels bad but why should I be angry? We are not ice skating, it’s not about how it looks. I know we can play football but we gave the game away at a decisive point.”
You’re always good enough until you’re not. Just gives you more to work on to get back to that spot. Liverpool have to find that one percent and hope that somewhere along the line, they can make up points other teams may drop. And they have plenty of chances coming up.