Jurgen Klopp insists he remains focussed on solving Liverpool’s short-term problems rather than worrying about whether they’ll finish in the Premier League’s top four.
The Reds fell to a shock 2-1 defeat to Leeds United at Anfield on Saturday night in what was already their fourth league defeat of the season.
But despite the FA Cup champions now finding themselves eight points behind Newcastle who occupy the final Champions League spot at the moment, the German tactician is adamant that qualifying for Europe’s premier competition is not currently his main concern.
“Yeah, that’s actually not my main worry in the moment because there are a lot of other worries but yeah, of course,” the former Borussia Dortmund boss said (as quoted by Liverpool World).
“I am at least not that dumb that I don’t know distances and I know who is up there, but you cannot qualify for the Champions League if you play as inconsistent as we do in the moment.
“So, how I said, we have to fix that and we will see where we end up. We all know that everything is possible, or a lot of things are possible, but for that you have to win football games and we didn’t do that often enough yet.”
There is still a long way to go this season but the quality of our performances is concerning – Leeds wanted it more last night and there’s too many of our lads underperforming all at the same time.
Fabinho, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez haven’t been good enough this term but with the number of injuries and lack of squad depth, Klopp doesn’t have much choice but to continue playing them.
The absences of Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota are being felt and the sooner Ibrahima Konate or Joel Matip return to the heart of our defence the better.
If we don’t finish in the top four, our only other avenue into the Champions League is by winning the competition this term.