With 10 games of the Premier League season remaining, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool are very much in the battle for the title.
Jurgen Klopp is convinced his new-look Liverpool team have already shown they can handle the demands of the Premier League title run-in – and believes the progress of Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott has saved the club millions.
The Reds resume their quest for a second championship under Klopp when they entertain Brighton on Sunday ahead of the blockbusting clash between Manchester City and leaders Arsenal.
In a three-way battle for the title, with 10 games remaining only goal difference separates Liverpool from the Gunners with City just a point adrift.
The Reds have made a habit of finishing strongly in recent seasons with 2019/20 – when they won the Premier League crown with seven games to spare – the only one of the past five campaigns in which they have taken fewer than 24 points from the final 30.
And despite an influx of new faces in the squad over the last 12 months, the Liverpool manager believes his team are “ready for the fight” up against last season’s top two and can lean heavily on previous experiences.
“It is important,” said Klopp. “It’s now clear what you are fighting for. What do you know before a season? When we played a season like we did last year, afterwards it was quite a restructuring of the team. The machine room was completely new, we had no idea (what it would be like). A late number six coming in, another number six injured early on, one of the young guns (Stefan Bajcetic).
“We had to create an idea and we did. We found a way together and I love so much about how the boys have taken to it.
“Yes, there’s a lot of excitement involved as well. Dom Szoboszlai still cannot get enough of Premier League football. You could play every 10 minutes with him and he’d still be very excited about that!
“We are not that experienced with this group. But everything I learned about them this season, they are ready for the fight. And what more can I ask for?”
Klopp pointed to the progress this season of Jones and Elliott, who have both become integral members of the squad that continues to chase a treble with the League Cup already secured and an imminent Europa League quarter-final against Atalanta.
“So many things are there,” said the Liverpool boss. “How the boys developed, how Curtis developed, how Harvey developed, so many things through that difficult period.
“As difficult as it was, something positive always happened. The very young ones coming in and how they performed, or how the boys who were already with us improved. The step Curtis made is insane and the step Harvey made as well, proper, proper. If you have to buy these boys, you spend real money. And we have them, which is really cool.”
Klopp added: “So far, the season is a good story. But if we want to make it a great one we have to keep going. That’s what we will do. We will see. Nothing went like this (uphill) this season. We had good results, but with performances sometimes you thought how could we get something out of this game and stuff like this.
“Probably the last 10 games will not be just like this (clicks fingers). We have to find a way in each game to overcome the opponent.
“And don’t look left and right and think, ‘what did they do and what did they do?’ (City and Arsenal). For you (journalists) it’s the most exciting time and you can judge it every day. Everything is important what you say, but it’s not important to us. It won’t change anything.
“If we lose, we were not good enough and we know that already, we don’t have to read it. If we win, we are the greatest and nearly champions and we don’t need to read that before we are.”
Sunday’s game is likely to come too early for Jones to be considered for a start having returned to training after more than five weeks out. Andy Robertson will be absent as he nurses an ankle problem, but Ibrahima Konate is fit and Darwin Nunez is available having been sidelined during the international break to tend to a niggling hamstring complaint.
