After a 2-0 win over burnley on boxing night, jurgen klopp offered a sarcastic response to a question about liverpool’s premier league title hopes, but admitted that his team is “punching distance.” Darwin nunez and a returning diogo jota goals at either end of the game put the reds in the top of the standings as they leapfrogged arsenal ahead of their trip to west ham united on thursday. At the halfway point of the season, klopp was not in a mood to have serious discussions about his team’s prospects, but he was able to conceal his joy at the result at turf moor, where liverpool won their first game in three after home games against manchester united and arsenal.
The first part of the season has ended, and we did everything right. Not perfect, but all right. It keeps us just a point away from the top. “that’s within striking distance,” he says. After a month of being hospitalized with a hamstring injury, klopp also revealed the motivation behind his decision to introduce jota. After replacing nunez late on at turf moor, the portugal international scored the decisive second goal, and the reds manager was enthralled by the forward’s appearance. “with the fourth game in ten days, you never know what to expect,” klopp said. It’s intense, no matter what the outside world thinks. Coming here and playing the game we played was absolutely thrilling. “it’s also remarkable that we didn’t score more goals,” he said. We did, but for different reasons. We had to wait longer. We caused burnley so many problems for a long time, we played a fantastic game. It was the last game in a long, hectic period, but we did it anyway. I loved the game we played together.
But it would have been better, it seems. The game remains open, and burnley has a lot of chances to score. We deserved to win that game, but it was the two perfect goalscorers, darwin and then diogo, who made it happen. We pushed him (diogo) on the squad list because he only trained twice and we wanted to give him extra training, and we said he could have it tonight at burnley. He will train properly tomorrow and be able to travel to newcastle, which is really helpful.
There are no injuries, but they are all good.” Klopp revealed that after beating burnley, he’s giving his players two days off. “we have five days before newcastle, which seems like a long time.” The boys are now off for two days. I told them ahead of the game that if we win, we’ll have two days off. During the game, i noticed my two days off slipping through my fingers.’
