Jurgen Klopp: It's all about getting through to the next round

Jurgen Klopp conceded that Liverpool’s performance in the 2-0 victory over Preston North End was not one of their best. However, the manager felt there were still a number of positives to be taken from the win on Wednesday night. Goals from Takumi Minamino and Divock Origi at Deepdale helped the Reds secure their place in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup. Just past the hour mark, Minamino opened the scoring with a close-range finish and Origi wrapped up the win with an acrobatic effort in the 84th minute. In his post-match press conference, Klopp said, “We didn’t play well, that’s how it is. We started quite OK, but then we lost the structure completely and that was the problem.” 

“We were too lively, too desperate to get the ball. Everybody dropped and we didn’t have enough players between the lines, we didn’t have [someone] always in behind the lines. That’s normal, that can absolutely happen when you don’t play a lot together. These boys, they train a lot together but they don’t play that much [together], so that absolutely can happen. That makes it difficult, especially because Preston was not too bothered about any kind of possession, they kicked the ball long and they fought for these balls. 

“All of a sudden, they get set-pieces, the atmosphere comes, we lose the momentum, they get the momentum. Football games are like this. I saw a lot of nice individual performances; as a team we can play better, but individually I saw a few really nice performances and that’s absolutely OK. It’s all about getting through to the next round, that’s what we did. That it [would be] difficult with 11 changes, that was clear.”

Klopp on Minamino and Origi

Klopp then analysed Minamino’s performance and Origi’s goal. “Taki is high quality. Taki’s problem is… actually, there is no problem apart from the other players in his positions are really good and thank God for us they are not injured. That’s it. Taki is absolutely fine, Taki is in an outstanding moment, training-wise much better than he showed tonight but he was the most dangerous player and scores a goal, which is really important.” 

“He understands our game as well really well, so you can throw him in and he can be immediately a massive part of our football. Tonight he was, obviously. Taki was good, but we all know he can be even much better. Divock’s goal was just Divock Origi; it was obviously not a striker’s game because we didn’t play that well and it is difficult for the strikers, but the goal he scored was quite special.”

Asked about his team selection for the remainder of the competition, Klopp replied, “No idea. It depends really to the specific situations. I don’t think we could’ve lined up completely different tonight. Of course Bobby was here and Diogo was here but it was not really the plan to bring them – we wanted to get through this. We have to see. I really don’t make this decision two weeks or three weeks before we play the next round. We will see.”