Klopp explains why Liverpool have had a ‘small team’ problem in 2016/17

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Jurgen Klopp

This season, Liverpool are yet to lose against a top six side and we’ve beaten Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City to boot.

But in the Premier League we’ve lost to Bournemouth, Swansea and Burnley, not to mention losing in the FA Cup to Wolves and both EFL Cup semi-final legs to Southampton.

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On the surface, it looks like Klopp’s Liverpool perform much better against sides who show attacking ambition instead of sitting behind the ball and playing pure counter-attack… Open, frantic games seem to suit our pressing style and ability to break quickly, but long-ball teams negate the press.

According to Klopp though this isn’t an issue as we’ve shown on many occasions we can defeat defensive, weaker sides; like the thrashings of Stoke, Watford and Hull back in 2016.

“We won a lot of games against these kind of teams. We lost three against those teams that you would call ‘weaker’,” Klopp told Sky Sports.

“If you want to pick out these three games then I think Burnley was pretty special, very early (in the season), it’s almost not allowed to put it in that bunch of games.

“Bournemouth was very special: we did really well and I don’t know what happened there – we gave it away but we did everything nearly perfect until a specific point.

“Even Swansea was not good but it was not that we had no chances.

“Even when you are a perfect side, which we are not, then obviously you will lose football games, that’s why nobody wins 100 per cent of games in a season.

“But I think we’ve proved often enough that we know the way to do it, the problem is that it not always works.

“We are working with human beings and things like this happen but for me the most important thing is that we know how to play them – now we have to show it all the time.”

Liverpool won just one game in January, and that was against Plymouth, so it’s imperative we put this right versus Hull tomorrow.

Marco Silva’s men will play deep and look to counter, but it’s up to us to play aggressive football and create chances – something we’ve not been doing too regularly.

With Sadio Mane back and ready to start though, our frontline looks a much more exciting prospect.

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