Liverpool could never be as defensive as United says Klopp

LIVERPOOL – 14 October 2017 – Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said he could never get away with the cautious tactics used by Manchester United counterpart Jose Mourinho in Saturday's 0-0 Premier League draw at Anfield.

"Manchester United came here for a point and got it," the German said in a TV interview. "For sure you could not play this way at Liverpool but it's OK for Manchester United."

Asked later at the post-match press conference to expand on his thoughts about Mourinho's tactics, the German, whose team still trail United by seven points, was more diplomatic.

"I said it was obvious they had a more defensive approach, I think that was obvious, but that’s completely fine," he said.

"After the game, it looked to me like they wanted a point; if they could get three, they would take it of course, but we wanted three.

"So they are happy and we are not happy. That’s easy. But it’s a home game so we should be dominant. I’m OK with the performance. It’s not my job to judge the Manchester United performance," he added.

Klopp said that while he was disappointed not to pick up all three points, he was pleased with the way his team performed against one of the title favourites.

"For me, a team who can become champions this year was at our stadium and it was not a world apart from us. It’s not that we play on different planets, it’s not that they are really good and we don’t find the entrance of the stadium. It’s OK and we will carry on," he said.

"If you watch the game and you have an idea of football, you cannot expect that we create 20 chances against Manchester United – it’s just simply not possible. Barcelona on the best day would not do it.

"You will see, United will not lose a lot of games in this season," he added.

"If you want to be happy today you can be happy, but if you think, ‘OK, again not too bad...’ – which is probably my view on it – then you can be in this mood and carry on," said Klopp.