Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free
Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter
Jurgen Klopp insisted his decision to leave Liverpool in the summer is not giving them any extra motivation to win the Premier League title.
Klopp announced last Friday that he will stand down at the end of the season and since then his side have beaten Norwich 5-2 in the FA Cup and Chelsea 4-1 in perhaps their best performance of the campaign.
But he is adamant there was no scope for his players to put in any extra effort, because he believes they were already trying as much as they could.
“If I wouldn’t have announced what I announced a week ago, what would be different?” he said. “The only little difference is that now they say: ‘For Jurgen’. That’s the only thing. Nothing else changed and that is the mood I’m in.
“Of course I want to win the league. Do I know if we have a chance, really? Because it looks like we can be around it, but there are so many games between now and then. We have to play them all and we have to win them all, which is absolutely crazy. I just cannot think about it. I am not a dreamer.
“But if you ask me if it would be nice then yes, very nice for everybody involved and the whole Liverpool world. But it’s not difficult to block that out, that’s what I want to say, because it is no different to other years before. If it can generate a few extra per cent it would be good, but I’m not sure that’s needed because we are already at 100 per cent, and that is fine.”
Klopp said he has not talked to his players about the perception that they could be distracted by his imminent departure.
“We didn’t speak about it because I didn’t think it was necessary,” he added. “I just thought that would be slightly disrespectful on the boys because I was not in doubt at all, we didn’t have to put an extra shift in, we didn’t have to put an extreme shift in; the boys always do.
“The Norwich game was good, really good. The Chelsea game was outstanding, it was outstanding. From start to finish, complete performance. That’s what you need, that’s what you want. I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with my situation. It’s not the first time the boys played like this.”
Klopp’s Liverpool have beaten Norwich 5-2 and Chelsea 4-1 since his announcement
(AP)
Trent Alexander-Arnold made his 300th appearance as a substitute against Chelsea and Klopp is convinced the vice-captain will end up on the leaderboard for Liverpool’s all-time appearance makers.
Ian Callaghan holds the record with 857 with Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard the other two members of the 700 club and seven others who have played more than 600 games.
Klopp thinks Alexander-Arnold can double his tally, saying: “Twenty-five [years old] and 300. Definitely. He has everything you need for that. You need to be lucky with injuries as well to get that number. I’m very positive about it. I wish him all the luck to get through all these challenges over the years but he has it in himself. It’s good.”
