Jurgen Klopp believes Liverpool have “no other choice” than to keep the Premier League title race alive after they closed the gap on Manchester City.
Sadio Mane’s first-half goal was enough to earn a narrow 1-0 victory over West Ham United in a hard-fought battle at Anfield on Saturday evening.
The Reds have again moved just three points behind leaders City with both having 11 games remaining. Pep Guardiola’s side host neighbours United on Sunday afternoon.
And asked if Liverpool, who have won their last seven league games, had breathed life back into a title race that only weeks ago appeared a procession, Klopp said: “We had to. No other choice.
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“We come to the point pretty soon probably when you win seven - or 12 in all competitions - then you cannot only win the ones where you are flying.
“Today we were obviously not flying. We had to dig really deep and that’s what the boys did. It’s necessary if we want to get something out of the season that we keep on going.
“No time to rest. Just keep going.”
Liverpool were indebted to a goalline clearance from Trent Alexander-Arnold to deny Pablo Forlans, good blocks from Andy Robertson and Naby Keita, and a clutch of stops from goalkeeper Alisson Becker to preserve a ninth clean sheet in 13 games.
And while hailing the “passion and big heart” of his team, Klopp admits their defending at times left much to be desired.
“The first goal they nearly scored when Trent cleared the situation with his long leg, that was really bad defending – no pressure on ball in midfield, no close last line and too high,” said the Reds boss.
“Both centre-halves were surprised by Forlans’ run and Trent wasn’t close enough.
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“That we could sort it in the end, Ali really calm made it not easy (for Forlans) and Trent was close enough to clear.
“But in the first half, we defended (Michail) Antonio extremely well with high and long balls, we took some risks and had enough time to get players around.”
Klopp added: “Second half was different, (Jarrod) Bowen was through after Antonio challenged with Virgil (van Dijk) and we never got back to 100% again.
“We were always a little bit late and even when Antonio didn’t win the ball, he made sure we couldn’t win it as well and they had much better position for second balls.
“We should have done better for both. The first we can improve, the second was the quality of Antonio - I didn’t see a foul of his, he just used his body.
“You need passion and big heart to defend it and what’s what we did, in the example of Robbo and Naby and Ali.
“We needed some luck in these moments and proper defending in a different way. It’s difficult to deny West Ham over 90 minutes but in the second half it happened much too often.”
