Football: Soccer-Klopp hopes for improvement with pressure off and Champions League spot safe

(Reuters) – Liverpool’s title challenge may have imploded but manager Juergen Klopp hopes they can get back to playing their best football with the pressure off and Champions League qualification assured for next season.

Fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, who are on a three-game losing streak, visit Anfield on Sunday and with Spurs’ defeat at Chelsea on Thursday, the Merseysiders were guaranteed a top-four finish in the Premier League.

That was a small consolation for Klopp after a run of one win in their last five games dropped them from first to third in the table behind Arsenal and Manchester City and shredded their hopes of winning the title in the German manager’s final season with the club.

“I am really happy (at qualifying),” Klopp told reporters on Friday. “It is an achievement. We looked like we can go all the way and stay in the (title) race for longer.

“But it’s still third place behind two teams who have done really well… it is not over yet but the pressure is off now. It would be really cool if we could play our football now because it’s been intense the last few weeks.”

As for his second meeting with Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou, Klopp said: “I expect a good side. If you don’t defend properly Spurs will play through you.”

“I understand it doesn’t feel like a great moment because of their expectations (in the league position) but they always have a clear football idea. We have to defend compact.”

Klopp said that he could not forget their last meeting, a 2-1 loss away in September, where Liverpool were reduced to nine men and had a Luis Diaz goal wrongly ruled out by VAR following a calamitous miscommunication with referee Simon Hooper.

“Hooper was there against Everton and I tried to get it out of my head but I couldn’t. It was not Spurs’ fault that night, they just played the game but I would like to win this for 500 reasons and the way we lost that (game) is one of them.”

Klopp confirmed that defender Conor Bradley is training with the team after returning from injury but forward Diogo Jota is not.

“Virgil (van Dijk) wasn’t (in training) the whole week, probably will be in parts of it today. So we have to see what we can do there,” he added.

Asked about his touchline argument with Mohamed Salah in last weekend’s 2-2 draw at West Ham United, Klopp said: “It is completely resolved, no problem. If we didn’t know each other for so long I’m not sure how we would deal with it but we know each other for that long and respect each other too much.”

The German also blamed the heavy schedule for the lack of English clubs in European competition finals this season.

“The Premier League is the best league in the world so it’s not overrated, the players are over-worked,” he said.

“They (broadcasters) said they pay us to play football but I don’t see it that way, football pays them. You have to become a part of football again and not just the squeezer, that is advice from an old man on the way out.

“It’s a crime,” he said of the fixture congestion. “I was actually waiting for Amnesty International to get to them,” he joked.

(Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)