Liverpool’s performance in the first half against Luton irritated Jurgen Klopp, who called attention to a crucial aspect of his team’s play that he “takes personally.”
Throughout their match on Sunday, the Reds found it difficult to break past a resilient Luton defence before falling down to a breakaway goal by Tahith Chong.
Late in the game, Luis Diaz tied the score in dramatic fashion, and Klopp was certain that his team “should have won” and that a draw was the “deserved result.”
In his post-match press conference, the manager addressed reporters and outlined the main reason Liverpool was unable to take the fight to Luton early on: a lack of counter-pressing.
He said, “What I didn’t like in particular was that we had 0.0 counter-pressing in the first half.”
To be really honest, I take that personally. I told the boys it’s definitely not acceptable.
However, since I am aware of their genuine desire, I must ascertain why they chose not to proceed.
“It’s probably not that complicated, but I need to watch it again, and I have enough time to do that.
“Good, good, good, be calm, be patient, stay patient,” and similar things were said to the lads at halftime. “And if you would now put counter-pressing into that, that would be really helpful,” I was told.
“Because they are less organised at these times and we would have a lot more and longer possession phases.”
We’ve all seen these games before, so we know that the circumstances don’t get any clearer with time.
“After we take the lead, a few gaps appear, but Luton’s strategy of set pieces and counterattacks keeps them in the game, and the score is 0-0 overall.
Therefore, you must confirm in advance that they have left the game. But they participated in the match.
The final xG score, according to FotMob, was 0.81-3.04, with the Reds having produced enough clear-cut opportunities to score three goals.
There were six excellent opportunities made and six that were squandered, with Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo, and Mohamed Salah all guilty of missing opportunities at close range.
“Credit to Luton, they did really well,” added Klopp.
“But to be completely honest, despite everything they did, we created opportunities but failed to complete them with the final conviction.
“At these instances, we lacked sufficient calmness. Both scoring and creating more were things we ought to have done.
But everything was okay, first and foremost. We’ve probably produced enough; just put one or two to bed, and everything will be OK; you win 1-0 or 2-0, and everything will be fine.
Nobody achieved a crazy outcome here. I felt that they perform incredibly well even though I knew why previously.
