Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is pleased with how his side are shaping up in the Premier League title race
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is pleased with how his side are shaping up in the Premier League title race
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has shared his thoughts on the team’s chances of winning the Premier League title.
After a 2-0 victory over Burnley on Boxing Day, Liverpool are now two points ahead of Arsenal. However, Arsenal still have a game to play against West Ham United while Manchester City will travel to Goodison Park to face Everton on Wednesday.
Klopp didn’t want to say too much about the title race, but he did make a joke when asked about his team being at the top of the league. “Fantastic,” he said with a hint of sarcasm. “I can barely keep my arms down!
The Liverpool boss also mentioned that his side are now within touching distance of the Premier League summit regardless of results elsewhere. He added: “It was absolutely all right what we did. Not perfect, but all right.
“It keeps us now that we cannot be more than a point away from the top of the table if Arsenal win, that’s within punching distance.”
Aston Villa, who were level with Liverpool at the start of Tuesday, ended up three points behind after losing to Manchester United.
Villa took an early 2-0 lead, but Alejandro Garnacho’s double brought the game back to level terms. Rasmus Hojlund then scored the winning goal with just eight minutes left on the clock. Meanwhile, current champions City are sitting in fifth place, although they have two games in hand over Liverpool.
Speaking at the beginning of the month, Klopp insisted he expects a ‘tighter’ title race than previous seasons.
“Usually this time of the year is where City are already 15 points ahead of the other guys who are separated by 10 points,” he told TNT Sports.
“It looks like it’s a bit tighter, a bit closer and rightly so. Everybody worked really hard in recent years to make the next steps and [with] City, what I admire most about them is how ruthless they are with all the things they’ve won over the years.
“But if you go there, you always think ‘Oh my God, this looks like it’s the most important game of their whole career for them’. I respect that a lot and they are there and will try it again but there are a lot of teams around who have made great progress and thank God we can be there as well. And, for us, that’s obviously super important.
“Let’s see where it goes to – we all need luck, especially now in this busy period that the players can go through that and we can use them.
“You have to be ready for the moment when the decisions will be made because at the moment, we’re only prepared [for] the finishing and that’s far off yet, so we have a lot of work to do before we can talk about other things.”
