Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp says Southampton were right to shut up shop against his free-scoring side
Klopp says he would do the same as opposite number Claude Puel if he had to play against Liverpool's stars
JURGEN KLOPP does not blame rivals for shutting up shop against Liverpool.
In fact, he would do exactly the same thing if he was facing his players.
Klopp was left frustrated but unsurprised by Southampton’s safety- first approach in front of their own supporters.
And he knows it is a problem his team is going to encounter more and more in the coming weeks.
Every side which has tried to go toe to toe with Liverpool this season have been blown away.
So now they are circling the wagons, denying them space and challenging the free-scoring Reds to break them down when they have every man behind the ball.
Saints forced just one corner and did not get a single shot on target as they passed up home advantage to settle for the goalless draw.
The statistics showed Liverpool enjoyed 65 per cent of possession, although Klopp believed their domination was even greater.
Yet he did not share his players’ disappointment at the result. Instead he took Saints’ caution as a back-handed compliment and said: “I don’t think they had a lot of fun today but it’s absolutely no problem for me.
“I’m not over the moon but it’s fine. Why would teams give us space when we play this kind of football? That would be crazy.
“So there’s nothing for us to moan about. We can’t say to opponents ‘please give us more space’.
“In the games we watched of Southampton, they were much more offensive than today.
“But a lot of teams play like this against us. Unfortunately, we are a team to stop.
“We knew before this season started that we had to work on this and be prepared for everything.”
Saints midfielder Oriol Romeu confirmed Klopp’s assessment when he said: “We tried not to change our tactics but Liverpool are probably better players on the ball and at some point in the game you just have to accept that and take the result.
“We spent a lot of time defending and trying to be strong in our own half, running and running to recover the ball. And that is mostly what we did.
“It wasn’t the plan but we had to do it.
“Liverpool are a very strong team offensively. They put a lot of quality players between the lines.
“Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino need to be pressed. They can’t be allowed to feel comfortable so you have to be aggressive and put your foot in. We worked so hard so it is a good point for us and we are very pleased with our performance.”
Claude Puel’s battlers would have finished empty-handed were it not for Liverpool’s wayward finishing, with Firmino, Coutinho, Sadio Mane and Nathaniel Clyne all wasting opportunities to break the deadlock and add to the club’s tally of 30 goals in 12 Prem games.
With the Premier League leadership changing on a weekly basis, Klopp knows that there is going to be little margin for error in the tightest title race for years.
Yet he scoffed at suggestions that neutrals are rooting for his great entertainers to end their 27-year Championship drought and insisted: “Nobody has told me that until now.
“I live in the Liverpool area so I don’t meet a lot of neutrals. They are either Liverpool supporters or follow Everton, and I am not sure they will want us to win the title.”
And the German was not putting much value on a rare clean sheet, either. Klopp said: “We have now had two clean sheets in the Premier League and in both these games we didn’t score either.
Keep up to date with ALL the Liverpool news, gossip, transfers and goals on our club page plus fixtures, results and live match commentary
“So what does that mean? It’s better to win 2-1 than to draw 0-0.
“It’s not that I don’t care about defending, it’s more that I don’t care what people say about our defending.
“OK, 14 goals conceded is too much but we’re not weak in defending so we need to be cool with this.
“Today we defended really well for 95 minutes. I didn’t see much better than the way Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip stopped any counter-attacks.
“So we will add this point to our account and use this performance to help us against Sunderland.”