Jurgen Klopp has given credit to Man City and Man United for pulling ahead of Liverpool this season, but has vowed his side “will challenge them again next year.”
Liverpool could hand City their title this weekend if they take three points from United at Old Trafford, in a bittersweet situation for the reigning champions.
It would, of course, help the Reds towards a place in next season’s Champions League, but it highlights the gulf between them and their rivals after a campaign dogged by misfortune.
But Klopp has insisted it would be “really weak” to take the Manchester sides’ form to heart, despite finishing above Liverpool in the league and contesting European semi-finals.
“We are responsible for the things that happened to us,” he told reporters.
“We were for the last few years constantly in semi-finals, finals, fighting for the league title. I don’t know if other teams then felt bad because of us.
“I wish for them not, and I don’t do that. I’m not a person like this. They deserve the situation they are in, that’s football, that’s fair.
“They won an awful lot of games, United turned the game around last night, did that already like 20 times this year, and that’s it.
“We will challenge them again next year, but this year we can only play our season and finish our season as good as somehow possible.
“We have nothing to do, obviously, with semi-finals and finals, we know that, but I don’t feel bad because of that.
“I’ve had my bad moments during the season for other reasons, but not because other teams are winning more games than us.
“That’s not my problem, I have only a problem with the opponent of the weekend, the specific weekend, and not looking at the table and going ‘oh my god, City and United back on track’.
“Life is too short for these kinds of worries or thoughts.”
Liverpool are likely to bolster their ranks in the summer transfer window, with RB Leipzig’s Ibrahima Konate expected to be the first arrival.
But Klopp’s focus is on the returning quartet of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Jordan Henderson and Joel Matip, who he believes will make the Reds “immediately stronger” next season.
“I know for us it was really, really harsh, but let’s imagine that doesn’t happen every year,” he continued.
“Then we have a better basis, different problems, the normal football problems in that moment, we are immediately stronger again.
“We didn’t forget how to play football, but negative things lead to other negative things from time to time.
“That happened to us in the beginning.
“We scored even without the last line we were used to, we scored goals in the right moment, we were still there, then we had to put midfielders in the defence and lost not only the last line but we lost the midfield as well, then we stopped scoring.
“Then you have to reinvent yourself pretty much new, and that is not recommended during the season, let me say this.
“Because you play games constantly and you are influenced by results and all these kinds of things.
“So it is a tough one, it was a tough one, but it’s not over. We will go for everything that is out there for us.
“I don’t know in the moment what that will be, but we will try to get it.”
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