‘It was not an ideal time to play City’ says the
Liverpool manager of their 4-0 defeat days after clinching the title
Jürgen Klopp has mixed memories of his last trip to face
Manchester City at the Etihad. On the one hand there was the guard of honour from City, and the pride in being the first manager in 30 years to bring a league title to Anfield. On the other was the score, 4-0 in City’s favour, and the nagging feeling that Liverpool’s elation at being declared champions had been put into perspective within a matter of days.
“It was not an ideal time to have to play City,” says the Liverpool manager. “It was the first time we were
Premier League champions and I wasn’t quite sure how to play it, how to prepare the players after we had been celebrating. I think we were not quite as focused on the game as we should have been that day and the lesson I took from it was that if you are not 100% focused in a game against City you will lose and lose big. You do not enjoy losing by that sort of score, but worse things have happened since. At least it was not the heaviest defeat of my life.”