Klopp: “Nobody Expects Perfection”

With everyone still talking about Ranieri’s shock firing and the role that Foxes players had in the decision, Jürgen Klopp (our Fearless Leader) was quick to reject the notion that players force owners to make unpleasant decisions.

“Players are not more powerful. We were much more powerful in the past,” Klopp said about the Ranieri decision. “It depends always on the board. As long as the players talk together there is no problem. If they start talking about you? For this you need an ear on the other side.”

Klopp also spoke with pride about the team unity that he believes played a critical role in ending Liverpool’s January Slump™.

“We enjoy the work,” he said. “I know what they want, they know what I want, so it is very good information.

“To maintain the relationship, it’s not like we come together every day and hug each other. We’ve had some nice moments already and hard moments already and in the hard moments nothing came between us, not in the whole of January. Absolutely nothing.

“I did not say how can I win if they don’t deliver because I didn’t think it. And they didn’t say they could win if I said the right things because they didn’t think it. That’s all.”

In the middle of all of those hard moments, Jordan Henderson had called a squad-only meeting in an effort to cure The Slump. Whatever was said seemed to work, and the Liverpool that came out to play against Tottenham were a completely different side from what we’d seen in the games prior.

Klopp saw the meeting as the perfect example of what makes Liverpool the team it is.

“I told the boys do it even when the public are aware of it being without the manager. I don’t care. I don’t have a second of doubt about my relationship with the team. I don’t have to often be part of different things. That is really good.

“It is really important the boys come together and sort a few things for themselves because I can only give advice on the sidelines of the pitch, say hopefully the right things and make the right sessions, but they have to take it.

“They have to use it and deliver on the pitch and be a real group and a real group can meet, talk about it and work on solutions.”

It’s less than 24 hours before Liverpool take on Leicester. With all of Klopp’s faith in the team, I’m feeling incredibly optimistic about what comes next.