Jürgen Klopp: I know this team will not stop trying
Jürgen Klopp pledged motivation will not be an issue as Liverpool aim to follow up seasons in which they claimed 97 and then 99 points in the Premier League.
The Reds were crowned champions last term having found a way to increase their tally by two after finishing runners-up in the previous campaign.
Their defence of the title – or, rather, attack on the next one as Klopp describes it – will begin in a fortnight’s time, though they could first land silverware on Saturday when they face Arsenal in the FA Community Shield.
During his media preview of the contest at Wembley, the manager was quizzed on the methods he’ll employ to ensure his players can try to maintain such remarkable consistency.
“That’s why we said we will not try to defend it, we will try to attack the next one. That’s the truth,” Klopp replied.
“Then you don’t change at all your approach because that’s what we always did, and there’s no reason for changing it. You don’t keep a title forever, it’s always open for everybody so that means we don’t have really to think about it.
“The points tally is nothing, we didn’t think after 97 we will go above that – and we did it anyway. We didn’t think one day, maybe after lockdown when we finally won the league, then maybe people thought about it and realised it’s now really tricky to get all these points. There were a lot of points out there to get; we didn’t get them all but ended up anyway with 99, which is good. We really never thought about it, so we don’t need that as motivation.
“And we know it will be a difficult season and not because we were champions last year or something like that, just because football improvement, as long as you play, never stops. So, everybody can improve.
“Chelsea look pretty ambitious obviously in the transfer market; United will do some stuff and they were already good last year; City, everybody thinks they will do. That’s how it is. Then still you have to find a way of playing again and everybody has the same chance. It’s not how many players anybody will sign, in the end they have to play with 11 and make three changes.
“In the moments when you face all these different teams you have to be ready to fight and be ready to win. That’s what we did in the last two-and-a-half, three years pretty much.
“Motivation will not be our problem. I’m not sure, will we lose football games? I don’t like it but probably yes, it will happen. It’s all about how you deal with the different situations. Will we win a football game? Hopefully yes. So how do we deal with that? It’s a challenge as well. All these kinds of things.
“Nothing really changed, it’s all about how you feel in the moment when you lose, how you feel in the moment when you win, what do you make with it?
“I know this team will not stop trying. That’s all I need. I won’t stop trying. I don’t expect everything to happen for me, I never expected that and don’t expect it now. But I expect that I give my absolute everything and I expect that the boys do that as well.
“That brings us to a position where we can be really competitive, and being competitive is the first step to go for titles because you just have to be around in the moments when decisions are made. That’s what we learned a little bit. But if we can do it still, we have to prove that on the pitch, nowhere else.”
Klopp does not expect Liverpool’s status as reigning champions to have a significant influence on how opponents approach encounters with the Reds this season.
But even if that did prove to be the case, the German insisted his team’s results will always come down to the mentality and desire they show themselves in each match.
He said: “Since I am here, in the beginning I was really surprised how much a game against Liverpool means to all the other teams, even when we were not considered the Liverpool of the past and stuff like this, seventh or eighth in the league. But then when you arrive in the stadium, I was like, ‘Wow, they really have a proper go for it!’
“And that never changed, so I’m not sure if there can be a bigger target on our back than we already had. Last season everybody wanted to beat us – everybody – obviously for a good reason. Not so many could do it. I don’t think that will change.
“Other teams wanted to beat us, that’s good, that’s how the competition is. It’s how and what we feel. If we think now about what other teams want to do with us, then we have already the first problem because we usually don’t think about that. We think about the tactics, what they do and stuff like that, not why they are motivated to win against us.
“We think about why we want to win the game. If it would change that now, that we think constantly because we are champions they want to beat us even more so, then we lose a few per cent of our approach, mood, attitude and all that stuff.
“I’m not ready for that. I want us to be in a mood actually to want to win each game. It’s not so important why other teams want to win against us, it’s much more important why we want it. That’s what we will try again.
“There’s no time limit on that. It’s surprising that people always think you can do it for a specific amount of time but then you can’t do it anymore. Actually, I don’t feel it. I’m 53, worked 20-odd years in the job and I never lost that, to be honest.
“I couldn’t do it always but the desire was always there, that will not change here in this club. Maybe other teams have now more reasons, but that’s only a problem if we change our approach as well.”