Jurgen Klopp reflects on Liverpool's defensive lapses against Arsenal: ‘We have to be angry as we made it too easy’
Liverpool were by far the better team against Arsenal at The Emirates, but conceded three goals in five minutes early in the second half, going from 2-0 up to 3-2 down
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Your support makes all the difference.Jurgen Klopp said that Liverpool must be “angry” after out-playing Arsenal for “89 minutes” but still only leaving the Emirates with a 3-3 draw because of three defensive mistakes.
Liverpool were by far the better team but conceded three goals in five minutes early in the second half, going from 2-0 up to 3-2 down before Roberto Firmino’s equaliser. Klopp was exasperated with the defensive errors which stopped his team from running away with what should have been a comfortable win.
“We have five minutes where we have obvious, individual problems on all the goals” Klopp said afterwards. “In this case, it is not the team’s defending. The first goal, there is a misjudgement, obviously. There is a misjudgement on the second goal. A misjudgement on the third goal, we were too deep. We made it too easy.”
Given how well Liverpool played for most of the game, Klopp was deeply disappointed that his team did not win. “The point is the minimum that we deserved tonight,” he said.
“The result is not what we wanted. The performance for 89 minutes was what we wanted, we played 94 minutes [in total]. The five minutes, of course, were very decisive. And difficult to explain, but good to learn from.”
After defensive mistakes have scarred Liverpool’s season, Klopp hopes that will motivate his players to improve. “We need to react differently, as individuals, to situations like this,” he said.
“We need to be much more angry than sad or disappointed. So we opened a door for them in these five minutes, and they took their chances. It was a strange game: everybody thought it was Liverpool’s night, then after these five minutes, everybody thought it was Arsenal’s night, and we got back.”
Klopp thinks that on the balance of chances, his team should have won 7-3. “We don't have to talk too much about defence because it was about individuals,” he said.
“We should have scored another four and that's a big compliment for the team because coming here, and playing this kind of football and creating this kind of chances is not easy. But we did it. That's why everybody in this room thinks if there should have been a winner tonight, it should have been Liverpool.”
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