Newly promoted Burnley shocked Liverpool’s travelling Kop and their manager Jurgen Klopp by running out 2-0 winners at Turf Moor on Saturday.
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Last season’s third-place finishers Tottenham Hotspur FC (1-0-1, 4 points) is set to face preseason favorites Liverpool FC (1-1-0, 3 points) in a Week 3 match at the White Hart Lane on Saturday, August 27 as the 2016-2017 Premier League season moves forward.
One particular issue has been the left-back role, with Liverpool fans unconvinced by Spaniard Alberto Moreno, leading to James Milner’s start in the position.
‘If one game changed my mind then I would be a real idiot, ‘ said the German bluntly. I know about the quality of Burton because, with all our respect, we analysed them and know much more about them than before.
“Emre Can was on the bench, he had a back problem, Lucas Leiva is injured and you ask me for a hard midfield player”.
“We lost in a game in which we had in both halves about 80 per cent possession”. There was tremendous buzz heading into the game- United’s first home game, Paul Pogba’s return to Old Trafford, Zlatan suiting up in front of the Stretford End faithful for the first time. “It’s not that you can train so good that I think ‘OK, he should be in the lineup.’ No, it’s about which kind of opportunities we have – who we can really use, who is in shape and that’s what we try to figure out in this next 24 hours and then we will make a lineup”. “The answer is I don’t know – we will see”.
“We’ve analysed Burton and, I have to say, the Championship-I really like this league”, he explained.
Andre Gray, who netted the second after laying on the first goal for Sam Dyche, later confessed he should have scored a hat-trick although Klopp, keen to deflect from a woeful defensive showing, perversely tried to blame his forwards for the defensive woes.
Liverpool finished eighth last season, as well as reaching two finals, but Klopp’s record against the top six was exemplary, leading to the suggestion that it is the teams not expected to be vying for honours, such as Burnley, who present a crucial challenge to his side this time.
“That’s okay. But when we conceded the early goal, life was not over, we had a lot of time to win the game”. It makes sense that we think about these things apart from the results. We never lost direction. always it’s clear we only pass because we want to create offensive spaces.
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“In the last moment we were not where we should have been – that was the problem”. “Now we have to accept the result and carry on”. There is no pressure in this moment, it’s more a chance to take the Liverpool train in the right direction and that’s what we should do and that’s what we want to do in this moment. I thought actually after 75 minutes that Burnley would vomit on the pitch, but they didn’t.
