Jurgen Klopp emerged victorious in the battle between two of the most fiery managers in the Premier League as Liverpool won 2-1 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
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“The season is not over, we have to play football – we know we can play football and we are convinced about our quality”.
On Friday’s evidence, his team is a title contender. “That’s all the truth, but in the end we have to prove it every week – or in this week, every three days because on Tuesday we have the EFL Cup against Derby, which will be a nice game too”. But I’m happy when I can do a good job for the team like against Chelsea. We need to keep working hard.
“I was really happy with the style of play, and the confidence we had”.
Chelsea on Friday were defeated by Liverpool in a thrilling match at the Stamford Bridge. “We controlled our football”.
But goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois wants to bounce back with victories against Leicester and Arsenal in the next week.
They should have dealt better with Philippe Coutinho’s cross, which could have been put in by any one of four unmarked Liverpool players with Lovren doing the honours.
“We have to reflect a lot on this game because it is important to understand the situation if we don’t want to repeat another bad season like last season”.
However, this time there was to be no late equaliser, with Liverpool seeing out the win to join Chelsea on 10 points from five league games.
It had been with a 3-1 victory on this ground that Klopp recorded his first win as Liverpool manager 11 months ago. Chelsea dropped to third and Liverpool rose to provisional fourth to start the fifth round.
Klopp insisted there was no reason to be concerned over the fitness of striker Daniel Sturridge, who was replaced by Divock Origi after 12 minutes of the second half. They pressured us and we couldn’t cope with it.
“I don’t think that he thought before the season that he’d be playing [at number] six but he’s a good player and he can play anywhere”.
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Sturridge has scored 55 goals in 96 appearances in all competitions for the Merseyside club, yet since the 2013-14 campaign he has managed just 12 Premier League goals amid struggles with injury.
