Jurgen Klopp is adamant Liverpool have not written the Premier League season off, with his side “completely full of ambitions” despite their start.
Despite their upturn in fortunes in the past two games, with back-to-back wins over Man City and West Ham, the Reds sit nine points off the top heading into the weekend.
Klopp and many of his players have already publicly declared their title hopes over, though it would be interesting to hear whether their stance has changed after the victory at home to City.
Ahead of their trip to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, Klopp was asked about his aims between now and the World Cup break, with the manager taking a longer-term view.
“We have no influence on [the title race]. We don’t play City anymore, we don’t play Arsenal anymore, we play pretty much all the others, if I’m right,” he said.
“The aim is, in the next game, three points. Honestly, we never had a different one.
“I really would like to rewind the movie a little bit and whenever somebody asked me the question ‘are you still in the little race?’, I would have said, ‘yes, of course!’.
“Everyone would go ‘oh my god, now, finally, he realises as well he’s a bit dumb’.
“We cannot say this, because it’s not the case.”
On paper, there is certainly still a chance of Liverpool catching up in the title race, particularly in a unique season sandwiching a World Cup, but there are plenty of variables in play.
More sensible is to revert to the perennial aim of finishing in the top four, and therefore qualifying for the Champions League, with Klopp insisting he is not “aimless.”
“Our aim is to win as many football games as somehow possible. If that would bring us closer to fighting for whatever, great,” he continued.
“In the moment we realise that, in the moment we are close enough, we will be aware of that as well and we will go for it.
“But whatever that will be, I have no idea.
“Is it top six, is it top four, is it top whatever, each three points brings you closer to the area where we want to be or where we should be maybe. That’s all.
“Please don’t think we have no targets or we’re aimless.
“We are completely full of ambitions still, but we have to do it step by step and that means game by game. The next one is Nottingham.”
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