It has been more than six years in the making for Liverpool to reach the FA Cup final and Jurgen Klopp was eager to stress it has not been for a lack of desire.
Under the German, the Reds have won every trophy available to them aside from the FA Cup, with their first shot in the world’s oldest national football competition arriving against Chelsea on Saturday.
It’s been a long journey to reach this juncture and along the way, Klopp has been called out for not taking it seriously having made changes to his XIs with priorities needing to be elsewhere.
And the manager was quick to say it has never been for a lack of desire to guide his team to the final of either domestic cup competition, rather a stretched squad at the start of the journey did not provide enough manpower to go the distance.
“We always gave our all to make it to the final, we just didn’t make it for different reasons,” Klopp told reporters on Friday.
“What is clear when you start a journey, what we did six or seven years ago, you cannot have it all. We didn’t have the squad for going for it all, we had to make changes.
“Everyone makes changes during a FA Cup and Carabao Cup campaign, that’s how it is. Some teams when they make changes you don’t realise and think, ‘they made changes and it’s still a great team’.
“That was for us the case this year, but not all the time. We had a lot of really young talents involved in this competition as well.
“The most important thing when you start new is to qualify for the Champions League. That’s what you have to do, that’s the most important start.
“That gives you the resources for the next step, that’s the truth. That gives you the chance to sign players who want to play in the Champions League, and that’s why everything has to stay left and right.
“And that’s how we had to do it.
“It was never that we didn’t want to go to the final, not at all, we just didn’t have the manpower to do it.
“And I don’t think we were particularly lucky with our draws, to be honest. We had really tough opponents as well, but that’s absolutely fine.
“So now, who cares what happened in the last six, seven years? It’s our first FA Cup final and we are really, really desperate to win it.”
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