Jurgen Klopp claims Liverpool are still within “punching distance” in the fight for the Champions League places.
Liverpool resume their Premier League campaign at Aston Villa on Boxing Day in sixth, seven points behind the top four after an uncharacteristic inconsistent start. Klopp is bullish about their Champions League hopes and is confident they can close this gap to make the top four for a seventh successive season.
“We’re really looking forward to what’s coming now,” said the Reds boss. “We know it’s intense and that there are no guarantees. We know that all the others feel the same and that Arsenal are buzzing to go again.
“Man City, we saw last night, they have expectations and ambitions. That’s how it is.
"We’ve obviously left a gap between us and much-more exciting spots in the table, but we consider ourselves for the moment in punching distance and that means we have to chase, and that’s what we will do.”
Klopp feels the World Cup has been beneficial for his players, especially those who did well in Qatar. He singled out skipper Jordan Henderson, who had a fine tournament with England, and says the midfielder has come back buzzing.
Henderson’s Three Lions team-mate, Trent Alexander-Arnold, barely featured, as did Fabinho, but Klopp does not feel their confidence has been dented by their lack of game time.
“All the players back from the World Cup really look on it, so that’s very important,” he said. “Some of them have regained confidence, although it was probably not that low, but a good World Cup, like for Hendo, was helpful.
“We have players who have rhythm, Hendo has rhythm, training, games. Ali [Alisson] also has rhythm, all the others had a break.
“Fabinho and Trent had minutes there and trained, I cannot see that Trent and Fabinho have lost a lot of confidence because they didn’t play many minutes.
“We footballers are used to dealing with setbacks and missing targets. That happens every year pretty much. We don’t carry that with us for too long.”
Liverpool lost their first match after the restart to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup and Klopp was happy with their form before the break for the World Cup.
“I don’t usually think about these kind of things, but I think we won eight out of 10 games,” he said. “So, that was good.
“If we had done that in the 10 games before, we would be in a different situation. There are reasons for optimism, definitely, and I’m a very optimistic person.
“There’s a lot more to come. We don’t think about the break anymore for us. We start again, building on the things we’ve done so far, knowing we can do better, expecting ourselves to do better, starting with that game on Boxing Day.”
