Klopp Talk: I Didn’t Think We Would Pull Off Another Comeback

We have never seen a Liverpool team quite like this before. At the same time—against Dortmund, against Barcelona—Red supporters recognize that this is nothing new.

For the seventh time this season, Liverpool looked set to walk away with one point or zero, and for the seventh time, the Reds clawed their way back to take all three points available to beat Aston Villa 2-1 after goals from Andy Robertson and Sadio Mané in the 87^th and 90^th minutes respectively.

It has been a hallmark of the four years Jürgen Klopp has reigned at Anfield to the point that one could argue that there isn’t another club in world football with such a potent combination of relish for the big moment, disdain for reality and bravery in the face of adversity.

The headlines had quite literally already been written: “Liverpool Lead At Top of Table Reduced To 2 Points”, “Reds Unbeaten Run Comes To An End.”

But the mentality giant Reds simply weren’t having any of it and erased the deficit in a whirlwind five minute spell. Even their own manager himself had a hard time understanding how his squad pulled it off.

“Because we had a couple of comebacks, I didn’t think today we’d do another one,” Klopp admitted in his post-match interview. “But it’s possible. We don’t have any alternative [than to keep going]. It would have been a tough game because of quality of Villa but we helped them.

“We made it difficult for ourselves,” he continued. “We started playing football, good, but not exactly as we should have done. We conceded a goal, it wasn’t easy to change decisions of bad passes and so on.

“Second half we started much better. Then we could change twice. Shooting from distance from [Alex] Ox[lade-Chamberlain] helps massively, moving Sadio right, giving Ox half-space. Aston Villa will feel they deserved something.

“We got knocks, and in the moment so far we can sort it most of the time. When you score late is ‘lucky’ but it’s not like we didn’t deserve to win.