Jurgen Klopp makes ‘crazy’ Liverpool admission as ‘misjudgement’ leads to changes

The question about Liverpool’s seeming lack of enthusiasm to perform such basic tasks as running around at Napoli last week was being carefully worded before Jurgen Klopp intervened.

“You can say it,” chuckled the Reds boss. “You don’t have to tip around!”

Such has been the willingness to meet head-on the fall-out from the catastrophic 4-1 reverse at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona that saw Liverpool open their Champions League campaign in a truly dismal fashion.

That Saturday’s scheduled Premier League visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers was postponed following the death of Queen Elizabeth II allowing extra time for contemplation with the Reds forced to wait until tonight’s visit of Ajax to start rebuilding their shattered confidence.

And Klopp, having watched several reruns of the horror show, was compelled to hand out some pointed assessments to a group of his players. “Not to all but to some,” says the Reds boss. “(It was a) general meeting and it was not too necessary to say things but I did anyway – ‘Why would you do that? Why would we do that?’ We brought ourselves into the situations.

“When James Milner arrives late into challenges then you know something is wrong. We had obvious football problems and what led to these problems is a misjudgment of these situations. We are not over the moon about our season, we don’t play exceptional football. It looked like everyone wanted to sort the problem by himself.

“Napoli is in a really good moment, played really good stuff. We could have scored more but we could have conceded more, which is crazy.

“(We’ve had) four or five days of absolute truths. We didn’t hide anything. But not to knock the players down, just to make sure where we are now is the starting point and to make sure we sort the problems together on the pitch. There was no pointing at each other, we were not good in all departments.

“My concern is now that we do that and start sorting the problems on Tuesday night. Step by step, big problems you don’t solve like this (clicks fingers).”

While Klopp would undoubtedly not appreciate the observation, there is a neat symmetry to Ajax being the visitors at Anfield this evening.

Liverpool’s beating in Italy was their heaviest in Europe since 1966 when they were thumped 5-1 by an Ajax side containing a certain Johan Cruyff and managed by the great Rinus Michels. The Dutch were, like now, the Reds’ next opponents in Europe the following week, with Bill Shankly whipping the Anfield crowd up to such an extent they fully expected to overturn the deficit in their European Cup second-round tie. The return game finished 2-2.

With Ajax having thumped Rangers 4-0 in last week’s other Group A game, Liverpool – Champions League finalists in three of the last five seasons – are already playing catch-up as they attempt to reach the knockout stages for the sixth successive year.

Klopp, though, is refusing to look too far ahead as he seeks to address a run of form that has seen the Reds win just two of their last seven games and, strangely, only one of their last three at home in the Champions League.

“That is not now the one thing to think about,” says the Reds boss. “We have to show a reaction. That doesn’t guarantee a result against Ajax.”

Ajax, like Napoli, goes into the game having made an impressive start to the season despite former manager Erik ten Hag taking a number of key players with him to Manchester United this summer. They have won their last seven games – scoring 25 goals in the process – to stand top of the Eredivisie under new boss Alfred Schreuder.

“They are in the opposite situation,” adds Klopp. “They are in a massive rebuild but doing a really good job. Thinking about the situation in the group is not massively helpful. We have to make sure we play completely differently against Napoli.

“Even when we realize now we have to defend better does not mean we will not make any mistakes. First of all, we have to make sure we all have the same idea.”

Klopp will ring the changes this evening. Kostas Tsimikas is poised to replace the injured Andy Robertson at left-back, with Joel Matip likely to come in at center-back. Thiago Alcantara, loan signing Arthur Melo and the fit-again Fabio Carvalho are all pressing for a start in midfield, with Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota eager to bolster the attack.

Artur Dias will referee Liverpool for the first time in a competitive game. Since the start of the 2020/21 season, the Portuguese has handed out an average of more than five bookings per game.