Jürgen Klopp said he needed to keep his emotions in check during “a wonderful afternoon” at Anfield where Liverpool fans saluted and his team eased into the FA Cup fifth round with a 5‑2 rout of Norwich.
Klopp’s name reverberated around Anfield at the start and finish of Liverpool’s first game since the shock news that their legendary manager is leaving at the end of the season. The German had asked fans not to sing “Jürgen is a red” and back the team’s continued pursuit of four trophies instead. He forgave the singing, but admitted it had been an emotional occasion.
“My job, and it’s not the most easy, is to pull myself together,” Klopp said. “I received all the messages people sent. I’m not made of wood, so I get all these. I said not too long ago: ‘Don’t sing the song during the game.’ People obviously stopped already listening to me, so that’s good. But it’s fine. We won the game and scored after that, so the reason for me being superstitious [about the song being sung] was done. It was great.
“It’s the first game after it [his announcement] and I’m not here to tell the people what they have to do. It’s just we play on Wednesday again and if we could ignore for 95-100 minutes that the manager is leaving at the end of the season and just do everything to make it as uncomfortable for Chelsea as possible that would be great. I know the people know that as well, so I don’t have to say it. But it was a wonderful afternoon in all parts of it.”
The academy graduates Conor Bradley, Jarell Quansah and the full debutant James McConnell all impressed while Klopp was able to introduce Andy Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dominik Szoboszlai following their recovery from injury. It was Robertson’s first appearance since dislocating a shoulder on international duty in October.
“Each minute they could get is really important and that helped to share the intensity again,” Klopp said. “Darwin [Núñez] we didn’t take off because he played bad, just the amount of games we played and will play. And the same with Joey [Gomez].
“In four weeks we play the next FA Cup game but until then we play just Premier League games and one final. Let’s make sure we are ready for that. The boys are back and that’s great, but we play pretty good without them to be honest. It is not about who is playing, it is about how we are playing. We have to make sure we are the one team Chelsea does not want to play against and Arsenal doesn’t want to play against, so let’s see what we can do with the players we have available.”
