Jurgen Klopp has urged his Liverpool team not to be too despondent after their goalless draw at Crystal Palace
Jurgen Klopp has urged his Liverpool team not to be too despondent after their goalless draw at Crystal Palace, saying: “We cannot suffer because of our own history”.
The Reds closed the gap on the top four to six points with a game in hand but missed a presentable opening to ramp up the pressure on fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur further by firing a blank in an uneventful game at Selhurst Park on Saturday night.
Mohamed Salah and Jean-Philippe Mateta both struck the bar but neither side created too many openings as the two teams played out a tame affair in south London.
Despite the failure to reduce the gap further on Spurs, who host Chelsea on Sunday, Klopp demanded that his squad don’t get too disappointed with the draw against the Eagles just because of what they have achieved in previous years under his management.
“We keep going,” Klopp said. “I see in your eyes and the players’ eyes as well that it looks like we lost the game. We didn’t. We spoil ourselves with a lot of things, but we cannot suffer because of our own history.
“That would really be a joke. This will not be the season when the history books are written that people will want to look at again and again and again. There won’t be big movies about it, but we have to go through it and we will.
“It’s not that we win and it’s all great and then we drop a point and it’s all rubbish. We have to keep going. Take the things and go again. That’s what we will do. Nothing really changed tonight, but you can see it two ways. We didn’t win, which sounds negative, but we have a point more than before, which sounds positive. You can choose.”
The Liverpool boss added: “It was a good point. The main difference to the other games we have played here over the years – and I know the record is insane – is that we didn’t score. I remember we often scored with a set-piece and the second was a counter-attack, and in the last 10 minutes we were under pressure.
“But the clean sheet is there. Could we have done better? Yes, I think so. The first diagonal ball we played from Trent was mishit and from that moment on we didn’t play the ball anymore in the first half. The first ball in behind was mishit. If you don’t have a compact formation you don’t threaten them in behind, some balls we gave away unforced and others they just won the challenge.
“Apart from when they hit the crossbar they had no shots on target. Tough game, but we got a point and a clean sheet. We carry on.”
