Jurgen Klopp has relived Liverpool’s season of goals which won the Premier League title – and picked out the ones which he felt were crucial to success.
The Reds were relentless in the first half of the season, clocking up all manner of wins with a whole range of performance types, to ultimately yield the same outcome: a Liverpool victory.
Klopp sat down with LiverpoolFC.com to talk about what the wins represented, how they came about and his thoughts about the actual goals—and some of his answers are extremely revealing.
The boss compared our 3-0 win over Burnley in August to the Champions League victory over Spurs in Madrid, while he says the late comeback win over Villa highlighted how the “belief [and] desire was always the highest, highest level”.
Indeed, that Aston Villa game also gets a comparison to a Champions League fixture: the comeback win over Barcelona in the second leg at Anfield last season.
“I didn’t have to say, ‘Don’t give up’ or whatever,” the boss said.
“We learned not to give up in the Barcelona game the season before obviously, and I don’t like to say the obvious things in meetings or stuff like this or in a situation.”
“When we spoke about the goal of Sadio the next day you see the block of Bobby Firmino. We said Bobby blocks pretty much the whole world! Because he blocks three players, Sadio can make the run and has still to make the decision if he goes there with his head because there was an Aston Villa foot with a football boot in his face.
“So it was the pure desire to score. I think there is a photograph of that moment and you will see that half of Sadio’s face has a boot in his face! A little bit of the head can touch the ball.
“Pure will and a deserved win.”
There’s also a massive emphasis, of course, on the November win over Manchester City.
A 3-1 result showed the world the Reds meant business when it came to the title fight and for Klopp it was essentially a perfect on-pitch representation of what the team was trying to achieve.
“That night, it was just incredible and the goals we scored that night, they will stay with me forever because all three goals are pure will, clear of our full football potential, our full tactical plan – there’s everything in.
“It was just everything what we want to be and everything what we want to show in three situations very well summarised. I loved that.”
Liverpool scored 85 goals across the course of the Premier League season and won 99 points to claim a first league championship in 30 years. We can be sure that the boss is already planning the next steps to improve on those numbers and ensure the success continues.
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