Last week, Jurgen Klopp suffered just his second defeat and first away loss since taking over at Anfield as he saw his side surprisingly beaten 2-0 at Newcastle.
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The German would have been forgiven for lamenting another costly result and two more dropped points, but instead greeted the conclusion to a bad-tempered 2-2 Premier League draw at Anfield with trademark enthusiasm.
We’ve badly missed that kind of offensive midfield run from one of the central three, but the fit again captain will hopefully be able to provide us more goal threat now.
West Brom began to grow into the game as Anfield became increasingly tense and went ahead 17 minutes from time.
Furthermore, West Brom held Tottenham to an impressive 1-1 draw at the Hawthorns last weekend and beat Arsenal there three weeks ago, drawing at West Ham in between. Klopp knew what was coming…so why couldn’t Liverpool handle West Brom?
Liverpool had West Brom under pressure from the first minute and Philippe Coutinho, back in the starting line-up, should have done much better when he rifled a shot over the crossbar from close range after the visitors failed to clear their lines. “Obviously we’re disappointed not to win today, but we have to go on to the next game”.
“We stayed in the game, had a few moments where we not so good, but only set plays that cost us”.
Apart from their underwhelming display against the Magpies, Klopp’s men had begun to find their rhythm in their attacking play as Divock Origi displayed his talent by netting a hat-trick in their 6-1 triumph over Southampton in the quarter-finals of the Capital One Cup.
As for the suggestion that he avoided Pulis at full-time after emotions overran on the touchline, Klopp said: “No. I didn’t see him after the game”.
“They play long balls all the time, they just want set plays all the time, free kicks, whatever”.
Origi’s strike came in the sixth minute of eight added on after Dejan Lovren was carried off with a knee injury following a tackle from Craig Gardner. Yes we can, we did everything, we were in the box, created chances, we made a brilliant goal.
The Sweden centre-back was not to be denied a goal, though, rising at the near post to glance in Chris Brunt’s corner with 17 minutes left.
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But any hopes Liverpool might have had of a comfortable afternoon disappeared as Albion equalised nine minutes after going behind. Yesterday we took him out onto the pitch but only for a bit of warming up and a little bit of running to help him feel a little bit better after this “cold” – it was a little bit more than that.
