Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says his team must “reinvent” themselves after a crushing 4-1 defeat against Napoli in the opening match of their Champions League campaign.
Last season’s runners-up were 3-0 down by half time, and conceded again just two minutes into the second half.
Speaking to BT Sport following the match, Klopp said, “Really tough, tough to take. Not that difficult to explain when you saw the game.”
“First and foremost, Napoli played a really good game and we didn’t. That’s the first explanation for the defeat. The two penalties we concede. For sure, both a little bit unlucky. Only one goes in. The next two goals, we serve on a plate – that’s not cool”, he said.
Although he said he needs to analyse the game closely, Klopp picked out some obvious areas where things went wrong, saying, “We were not compact neither defensively nor offensively. Until Thiago entered the pitch I can’t remember one counter-pressing situation. The reason for that is we were just too wide. It was everything obvious, why it happened. I cannot answer it right now.”
IT’S A REALLY TOUGH COOKIE TO TAKE, BUT OBVIOUSLY I HAVE TO TAKE IT.
As well as their dire start to the Champions League, Liverpool have struggled to get going in the Premier League too, winning just two of their opening six matches.
Speaking about their poor form, Klopp said, “We have to reinvent ourselves. There’s a lot of things lacking, not in all games but now. The fun part is we have to do that in the middle of a Premier League season and a Champions League campaign. In three days we play against Wolves. They saw the game tonight, they cannot stop laughing probably.”
“We have to find a setup to be much better in pretty much everything. We were not working as a team”, he said.
The heavy loss in Naples equals the club’s biggest ever defeat in the Champions League, and defender Andrew Robertson was also critical of their performance, saying, “We were miles too open. You can’t come to a place like this and not be compact. They were by miles the better team.”
“Too many times they had spaces to run at us and cause us problems. You come away in the Champions League and you can’t be wide open like that. We have to get back to basics and be compact”, he said.
“We deserve this result. The way we were wide open they found so many spaces. It felt like they had an extra man.”
YOU HAVE TO BE READY TO FIGHT.
After an unconvincing start to the season, Robertson has been looking ahead, saying, “We have to wake up and quickly because we can’t perform like that.”
