Klopp: This Liverpool team isn’t the finished article

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  • Post published:April 23, 2020

Jurgen Klopp has fired a warning to rivals by insisting Liverpool are ‘not the finished article’ and can still get better.

The Reds were 25 points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League, having played a game more, when the season was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic.

If 2019-20 can be completed, then Liverpool appear certain to claim their first top-flight title in 30 years and add to their substantial recent success under Klopp.

After losing the 2017-18 Champions League final, they lifted the trophy for the sixth time last year by beating Tottenham in the final in Madrid, before winning both the Uefa Super Cup and Club World Cup in 2019.

Klopp, however, insists there is room for improvement in a team who have lost just twice in the league since the beginning of last year.

‘We will not change [mentality], that’s the first thing,’ Klopp told Sky Sports during an interview via video link.

‘If we will be successful depends on what other clubs are doing as well because they all have a chance to improve things, to do things better. So I have no clue what the future will hold for us. But we will not change, this team is not a finished article, it’s not done.

‘We have a lot of space for improvement and we work on that. We have fresh blood coming up internally, we can mix things through. There are a lot of things we can improve obviously, but we can improve it with this team, which is really great.’

Klopp continued: ‘Life is a constant challenge and we realise it in this moment especially because we never faced a challenge like the one we have now. It looks like the situations we had in the past where we thought they are big problems, they look like nothing.

‘Qualifying again for a Champions League final and not winning the league because of a point or 11mm, that could be hard. But we always saw it like this: the only way to get something is to give everything. But it’s not a guarantee.

‘The boys were always ready to give their all, absolutely all and try again and try again and try again. Then there are two possible scenarios. One is you lose the final, one is you win the final. You lose the final, there is still a wonderful experience to go there because you had to qualify from the semi-finals, the quarter-finals, the last 16, you have to go through the group stage. You can take so much confidence from it and that’s what we did from the Champions League defeat against Madrid.

‘It was a strange final and it said nothing about the boys, absolutely nothing. The only thing we realised was we were good enough to cause a few more teams problems now. That was exactly the plan for the next season.

‘In this season we are at the end of April and it didn’t start again, that’s clear, but whenever we can play again – whenever it will be – we will not give up. In the moment when it’s allowed to concentrate on football again for us, we will do that again and we will start with that again and try our best again. We will see when it will be.’