Jurgen Klopp sees no similarities between Liverpool’s 3-0 loss against Barcelona in the 2019 Champions League and last week’s defeat to Atalanta: ‘We are here and will try to win the game, that’s all.’
The German tactician spoke at a press conference on Wednesday on the eve of the Europa League quarter-final second leg against Atalanta.
La Dea secured a historic 3-0 win at Anfield last week, and reporters asked Klopp if the Reds could complete a stunning comeback like in 2019 when they claimed an aggregate 4-3 win over Barcelona after another 3-0 loss in the first leg.
“What is similar? The result definitely. The performance not really, we lost 3-0 in Barcelona and people didn’t know how and now we lost 3-0 at home and are now away, it’s a massive difference,” noted Klopp as quoted by Liverpool Echo.
“We are here and will try to win the game, that’s all. That’s what we should do. We shall see if that’s possible. A lot of moments we had really good moments but they completely deserved to win and played a good game. Let’s start with a much better performance and try to win the game and we will see how much time is left at the end.
“If we want to win then we better not concede, that is clear. That is a big part of the match plan,” continued Klopp.
“Conor Bradley has had an injury like Ryan Gravenberch had, has a couple of things so he could be back first week in May, he overstreched the ligaments a bit so serious enough that he’s not here.”
Is Atalanta’s aggressive pressing and man-marking a problem for Klopp and Liverpool?
“We played four years ago against Atalanta and they played like this, and the result was different here,” noted Klopp.
“Man-marking is not the problem, we didn’t do really well and they did well. We have to do better. We played into their hands.
“Tomorrow the game is more difficult as they don’t have to score at all. Not sure what they’re going to do. It’s not easy when you’re 3-0 up. We found that out when we won 5-0 here, we lost 2-0 in the home game. We will see who deals better with the situation. If Atalanta go through, then they deserve it; if not, then something special has happened.”
Only Atalanta, Barcelona and Real Madrid have won twice at Anfield in European competition.
Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were held to a 2-2 draw by Hellas Verona on Monday night in their latest Serie A outing. Atalanta have never qualified for the Europa League semi-finals in their history.