Klopp Talks about the Bilbao Performance and Robertson’s Injury

Season openers are always challenging, and the fact that Liverpool managed a solid performance and a 1-1 draw against Athletic Bilbao this weekend is cause for some celebration. The team had the power of Anfield (with fans!) behind them and the 40,000 fans were treated to an excellent Diogo Jota goal. The boss was pleased with the performance, even if he would have preferred the team to score a few more goals.

“In our good spells we should then use that to score more goals, that’s what we didn’t do today, that’s why it was only 1-0,” Klopp told the club website. “This one goal, I think Bilbao deserved. It was a bit unlucky in that situation, we became a bit passive in this period of the game. It doesn’t make too much sense because if you need a little bit of a break you have to keep the ball; the most economic part of the game is to keep the ball and let them run. But we didn’t do that. That’s a mixture of the rhythm we still have to find obviously. But, again, with big spells of the game, I was more than pleased. It was absolutely great. If Robbo’s injury wouldn’t have happened I would be over the moon about the performance, to be honest. But it’s all a little bit reduced, of course.”

Andy Robertson walked off the pitch at the end of the first half with an ankle injury.

“We obviously don’t know in the moment how serious it is,” Klopp added during the post-match interview. “It was pretty painful and that’s why Andy went off. You probably saw it on the TV pictures better than we did, but he got the ball, the ball on the front of his foot, [and] twisted the ankle.

“The pain settled already, but we cannot say anything further without further assessment tomorrow. He has to get a scan and then we will know more.”