Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said his over-exuberant celebrations were to blame for his team nearly throwing away victory in their pulsating 4-3 Premier League win at Arsenal on Sunday.
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“We had many players stay very late at the Euros – Aaron Ramsey, Laurent Koscielny, Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud, four players who went very late”.
“We are not ready”.
“Ramsey [and others] – they all came back later”.
“The defence in the last 10 mins, [needed] a bit more organisation and we had the opportunities for counter-attacks so there’s a lot to do”.
Walcott gave Arsenal the lead on 31 minutes, moments after his penalty had been saved, as he collected a pass from Alex Iwobi and fired low across goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.
“We are not ready physically”. Players can get injured, like [Aaron] Ramsey [hamstring] today, or you can give them needed rest and be without many of them.
“Scoring four goals is wonderful, conceding three is the opposite of emotions”, Klopp said. “It isn’t necessarily the inexperienced players that cost us the goals”.
“(But) I don’t think we need to be anxious because I don’t think it was mistakes that conceded the goals today.
“I am happy not only because I scored two goals but because the team played well and we got the three points we wanted”.
“I have a big, big part in the excitement in the last half hour”, said the German, “because it’s not allowed to celebrate the fourth goal when there is still half an hour to go”.
Jamie Vardy will play against the Gunners for the first team since snubbing a move to the London outfit, and endured a horrific game against the Tigers on Saturday.
“I told my players at half-time there’s no reason to be hectic in our game, but obviously here it’s a little bit hectic!”
Substitutes Santi Cazorla and new signing Granit Xhaka swung the game back in Arsenal’s favour and, after Oxlade-Chamberlain bumbled one in, Chambers made it 4-3 on 76 minutes.
“We see first what we can do with the players who are preparing at the moment and how many are injured, can they recover for next week I don’t know”.
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“It looked like after half an hour with 1-0 for Arsenal – it’s very warm and it’s the first game – that it’s not a Liverpool day”.
