Liverpool might have ended their poor run of 2017 and picked up their first win in the league since defeating Manchester City at Anfield in December but their manager Jurgen Klopp stated that they should not be thinking of winning the title.
The Reds had a wretched run before turning a poor Tottenham side 2-0 thanks to a Sadio Mane brace. And although the win and the performance were similar to that of the first half of the season, the German was quoted by Sky Sports as saying that catching Chelsea might not be possible until the end of the season.
Klopp said:
“What would you think if I said we could get them [Chelsea]? Really ambitious or crazy? I am not too interested in this at the moment.
“The only possibility to win something is to win football games. We started, if you want, 2017 tonight. We should not go nuts immediately. Let’s take it step by step.
“Even though we didn’t perform fantastically in January we are still in a really good position in the league.
“Chelsea don’t look like they could struggle over the (remaining) week but we will try everything to get as many points as we can from the season.”
The German manager was pleased not only with the attack but also with the defence as they kept a clean sheet, even though Lucas Leiva played in the heart of the defence.
“You can win a game and not be happy with the performance but tonight I am really happy with the performance.
“Our offensive part of the game was really strong, really direct, really clear. We showed fight and we played.
“We really concentrated and improved defensively in this game. It was really good and well deserved.”
Sadio Mane shines for Liverpool
The difference for the side was the addition of Sadio Mane, who had missed most of the games in January as he was on AFCON duty and the Senegalese was a thorn against Tottenham and ensured Liverpool have something to look out for until the end of the season.
“He was fantastic and could have scored a third,” Klopp said. “It is no problem for me to talk about such a wonderful performance from Sadio but actually, Roberto Firmino, I don’t think I saw a lot of better games from a striker without scoring.
“I saw a lot of good individual performances tonight and that is important, otherwise you can’t win against a team like Tottenham.
“Of course we missed Sadio but each team in the world would have missed him. It is not that we played 20 games really bad, we had a few.
“Now we are back in this race and we have to use this situation. We now have 14-15 days, so two or three days rest for the boys and then a pre-season. We have to use the time.”
Liverpool do not have another game for 15 days when they face struggling Leicester City and should they play in this way, three points at the King Power stadium will be a certainty.
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