Jurgen Klopp has argued that injuries are the important factor in Liverpool’s 2-1 loss at home to Leeds, as his side suffered their first defeat at Anfield in the Premier League in over a year. The Reds boss argued that he was forced to hype Harvey Elliott, Thiago Alcantara, Mo Salah, Darwin Nunez and Roberto Firmino as the packed schedule begins to catch up with his team.
Liverpool were under Cosh’s gates early after a poor back pass from Joe Gomez allowed Rodrigo to come on to open the scoring in the fourth minute. Salah found the equalizer 10 minutes later with the Reds dominating possession for the rest of the game. However, they were consistently repelled by a fantastic performance from Leeds goalkeeper Illan Meslier, who made nine saves over the course of 90 minutes.
The Frenchman’s performance kept his team in the match and he was rewarded in the 89th minute when Crysencio Summerville stole away to take the winner for the away team. It was the first time Liverpool had lost at Anfield in front of the fans since 2017 and the first time Virgil van Dijk had lost at home in the Premier League since he joined the club from Southampton in 2018.
Klopp argued after the match that he was forced to rely too heavily on five players amid a difficult injury situation at the club.
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“Maybe some players are overrated,” he told Sky Sports. “Harvey [Elliott] It has been exceptional for us this season. He had a good start but was unable to continue. Thiago has been sick, from the front the same [players] play all the time, they are the three strikers we have left. We have to fight and that is what we must do.
“On injuries, I said some players have to play them too often and some players come back and have to play too soon. That’s the situation because games are getting thick and fast.”
He also lamented his team’s defense and described the first goal as ‘weird’ after a bad back pass from Joe Gomez passed Rodrigo with an open goal to open the scoring.
“It was a setback, absolutely. I thought we got off to a really good start and then I conceded a weird goal.”
“We scored the equalizer, but for some reason it didn’t give us back our confidence. It was difficult for us to control the game and we gave away too many balls.”
“In the end it was two against one in the area and they can finish off the situation. The problem is that we cannot control these types of matches at the moment.
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“A team performance is always made up of individual performances. One leads to another. You can watch this game in its entirety, you can’t defend like we did for the second goal, but we did, that’s why we lost. Otherwise it would have been a point and we go from there. Now we have nothing and it feels completely different.
Despite the result, Klopp promised his team would improve in the coming weeks as the Reds now face a big fight for a Champions League place at the end of the season with Leeds losing meaning now they are eight points behind fourth. place Newcastle.
“We have to bring our quality to the field and we fight against it,” he concluded. “We had problems from day one, injury-wise. Players have had to play from day one. It is our situation and it means that we have to help each other, and that is what we will do.”
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