Jürgen Klopp said he feels “really sick” with Liverpool’s defending after they conceded two poor goals, both on the back of set pieces, during a damaging defeat against Leicester City that ended their interest in the Carabao Cup and extended the club’s disappointing run of results.
Shinji Okazaki scored Leicester's first after Liverpool could only half-clear a corner and Islam Slimani added the second following a throw-in, leaving Klopp lamenting familiar failings.
“The story of this game is really easy to tell,” the Liverpool manager said after the 2-0 defeat. “We were the much better team in the first half, we didn’t score – that’s sometimes part of football. It was unlucky in one or two moments, maybe not clinical enough in others. But as long as we concede goals like we conceded today again, then it is quite difficult.
“We should have scored three but as long as you leave games open, you have to defend. We always have to defend these situations better. The second ball after the corner, it’s close but it’s not offside. So we need to make it more clear that it’s offside. The only thing you can do is to push up – we didn’t. With the second one it is a throw-in again. Everyone can imagine we know how to defend them but obviously we don’t do it, because always somebody else is doing it. It doesn’t feel too cool but it’s the truth.”
Klopp, who decided before the game that Philippe Coutinho would play only the opening 45 minutes, denied Liverpool's heads dropped. "After the first goal you saw the heads from Leicester went up, that was a bigger difference," he said. "The game changes in moments like this – you have the chance to do it by yourself or sometimes you are on the wrong side. But that we concede like this, that makes me really, really sick."
(Guardian service)
