Liverpool 0-1 Brighton: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp felt Liverpool could have no complaints after they were defeated 1-0 by Brighton & Hove Albion at Anfield on Wednesday evening.
The Reds were beaten as Steven Alzate scored the game's only goal in the 56th minute, with the midfielder converting from close range after Dan Burn's header back into a dangerous area.
The result sees Klopp's side drop down to fourth in the Premier League table following Leicester City's win away at Fulham.
Read on for a summary of the boss' post-match press conference...
On his assessment of the game…
First and foremost, Brighton won the game and rightly so, [it was] deserved. They were fresher than us tonight and did more good things than we did. We lost too many easy balls. The best way to defend Brighton is to keep the ball, to play football yourself and when we did that, we had control at least but didn't create a lot. I said now plenty of times in all the interviews outside, for me the team looked tonight – and it's long ago we looked like this – fatigued, mentally fatigued and that leads to not the best legs as well. It was a tough week and today we were not fresh enough, that means then [not] good enough to break the formation of Brighton. In the end, they scored a goal, had other chances, we kind of as well, but they scored and that's why they deserved to win.
On the current situation in the Premier League table…
The gap to City, I know, I'm manager of Liverpool and I have to say [because] you always ask and we were champions last year, so I have to say, 'Yeah, oh my God, we want to be champions…' Yes, we want [that], but you need the games for it, you need the performances for it, and we don't have. So, that's the truth as well. We fight for other things, we fight for three points. It is not decided yet who will get the three points on Sunday, so we have to play better and we will try as well. Then we will see. These gaps are not interesting in the moment because they are the result of the results we had already. What we can influence is the next games and we will try for that. For tonight, it was not enough – we saw that, we know that and we have to change that.
On whether he was surprised with Brighton's performance...
Not at all. I said before the game, I see Brighton quite frequently. They were good. So they had a few counter-attacks when we tried really hard, that's when Caoimhin was outstanding and kept us in the game. Definitely if we are 1-0 up they don't have these counter-attacks, that's clear. They scored a goal, they had a clear idea – so it's passing the ball or chipping the ball to Burn and go from there. We had our moments. Again, the best way to defend against Brighton is to keep the ball and for keeping the ball you have to pass the ball from A to B – and A should be Liverpool and B should be Liverpool. Very often B was Brighton because we pass the ball [to] their feet. That helped Brighton definitely. But I'm not surprised about their performance at all.
On how far away Sadio Mane and Diogo Jota are from returning...
Diogo is – I don't know exactly – a couple of weeks, two, three, four. I'm not sure. And Sadio we will see. He might be available for the weekend, I don't know. He didn't train with the team today. We will see.
On his comment about the team being mentally fatigued and how difficult it is to change that with another game coming up in four days...
Difficult. Don't forget I'm not native. For me tonight was really tough. We had two tough games and we are not mentally fatigued like depressed or whatever. Just tonight we were not mentally fresh enough, that's for sure. That's what I mean and not depressed or whatever. Please don't forget I'm not native and don't make stories of my bad English. So, we were not fresh enough here, that's true, and that's what we have to be. How I said, it was tough. We are still only a few minutes after the game and my job is to find explanations and to work with that then. I know and you know as well how much better football these boys can play. There might be two reasons. One is they don't want to, and I think even you would agree with me that that's probably not the case. So then why didn't it work? These are the things we have to figure out. I was involved in these two games, so it was tough for me as well. We go to London, play there, come out late at night and the next day you train a little bit and then you go again to London and then you come back and play Brighton, [who are] obviously in a good shape tonight. That's then tough. We have now one day more to recover. We spoke about that very often that it means the world actually to footballers and bodies in general. Hopefully we will use that.