Jurgen Klopp refused to pin blame on his Liverpool players suffering from fatigue after their Premier League title hopes suffered a blow.
Liverpool had a dismal first half performance versus Palace and a plethora of squandered opportunities in the second half. Following a stunning 3-0 loss to Atalanta in the first leg of their Europa League quarterfinal, Klopp’s team has now dropped their last two games.
The Reds’ team is thin because of the numerous injuries they have had to deal with this season. Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allister may be suffering the effects of their hectic schedules, Klopp acknowledged, but Liverpool needs to figure out why their recent performances have fallen short.
But he was encouraged by the performance of Curtis Jones, who recently came back from an ankle injury while Trent Alexander-Arnold came off the bench to make his first outing after a knee issue.
Liverpool manager Klopp said: “Did Wataru [Endo] and Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] now play a little bit too much in the last few weeks? Maybe, they were the two most-used [players], especially Macca. The other guys came back from injury.
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“I would say Curtis [Jones] today was really good. Dom [Szoboszlai] came back from injury, stuff like this, kind of rhythm. I think for the situation Trent [Alexander-Arnold] is in, that was really good but I don’t think he could now play 120 minutes, let me say it like that. Robbo [Andy Robertson] came back from injury.
“All these kind of things, so a couple of players had to play a lot and a couple of players always were interrupted – that’s a bit the situation. It’s actually not too interesting for us if we find now the real answer.
“We just have to make sure that we don’t think about where we are coming from – whether they are injured or whether they are not – and we just have to make sure we find a way to beat the specific opponent in front of us. It’s always like this.
“For winning, as a manager you find a lot of explanations, ‘This was great, this was great.’ When you lose, it’s not as easy to find these things and they might be obvious but it’s not about now putting the finger into that or that or that.
“The solution is always being really together on the pitch for us. Where we are, we got because we were against the ball an absolute machine, and that’s what we have to be.
“In that moment, we have the rhythm, we have the momentum in the game, it’s difficult for the opponent, they don’t feel great, we feel much better and then these boys can really play football.
“Today they showed in a really difficult situation that they can do that, and that was good. But it doesn’t feel great anyway because we lost the game and we planned this day completely differently. But here we are and, how I said, we have to deal with that.”
The Reds were defeated 1-0 by Crystal Palace at Anfield, which means Manchester City are two points clear at the top of the table. Arsenal, meanwhile, are second and level on points with Liverpool but have a better goal difference of eight.
