JURGEN Klopp has branded Rangers “dangerous” and told his underperforming Liverpool players to brace themselves for a fight against opponents battling for their Champions League survival at Anfield tonight.
Klopp’s side have struggled to reproduce the form they showed last season, when they won the Carabao Cup and FA Cup and reached their third Champions League final in five years, during the 2022/23 campaign.
They go into their third Group A match on the back of a disappointing 3-3 draw with Brighton at home in the Premier League on Saturday – a result which left them 11 points behind leaders Arsenal in the table.
The German is anticipating a difficult evening against Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team, who have lost their opening two games to Napoli and Ajax, and knows his men will need to match the visitors’ intensity to prevail.
“Rangers would be dangerous in any situation,” he said. “Rangers do extremely well in general, but in the Champions League their results have not been as they would have wanted. So, we expect a team fighting for a result. That’s what we have to prepare for.
“I saw the last game against Hearts (Rangers won 4-0 in the Premiership at Tynecastle on Saturday). I have seen more games, but obviously the last one. They are a really good football team. That is what we have to prepare for.
“They are a team that has had results they didn’t want and that is what they want to change definitely. So we expect a proper fight, a real fight to be honest, and that is what we prepare for.”
Klopp added: “As it always is in life when you spot a problem you think about it, you expect a solution to be instant. That in football never the case. That wouldn’t have been the case even if we had won the game (against Brighton) 3-2.
“That’s why we just have to keep going. We must improve, play better, defend better, attack better. Pretty much everything.”
“Two years ago we had a very similar situation for different reasons. We found a way out because we worked on it and that is what we will do this time.
“Our general situation is important but not so much tomorrow, because when you prepare for a game, you prepare for a game independent of the situation you are in.”
Klopp admitted that Liverpool’s defending has been a concern for him this season – Jordan Henderson and his team mates have conceded eight goals in their last three games against Napoli, Ajax and Brighton.
He suggested that he will alter his approach when his team face Rangers – who will field either on-form striker Antonio Colak or their record European goalscorer Alfredo Morelos up fropnt - this evening.
“We have conceded now similar goals where they go through the same gaps,” he said. “The special problem that we have is that we have a very brave way of defending usually and when the timing in our defending is not perfect, we leave a gap open. That was always the case by the way.
“If you don’t close that gap with intensity that makes it tricky. We have to make it more compact. We have to improve it. In our mind we know that. Defending is an art.
“It worked for us really well and when it is not working out, you realise step by step how much you have to go back to the basics so you defend solidly again.”
