Jurgen Klopp was frustrated with Liverpool’s first-half performance against Luton, singling out a key area of their game that he “takes personally.”
The Reds struggled to break a tough Luton side down throughout their clash on Sunday, before going behind through Tahith Chong’s breakway goal.
Luis Diaz equalised in emotional circumstances late on, with Klopp convinced his side both “should have won” and that a draw was the “deserved result.”
Speaking to reporters in his post-match press conference, the manager explained how a lack of counter-pressing was the key issue as Liverpool failed to take the fight to Luton early on.
“What I didn’t like particularly was, first half, we had 0.0 counter-pressing,” he explained.
“That’s something I take personally, to be honest. I told the boys it’s certainly not OK.
“But because I know they actually want to do it, the question is why they didn’t do it, so I have to figure that out.
“I will, it’s not rocket science probably, but for that I have to watch it back – [there is] enough time for that.
“Told the boys at half-time, ‘good, good, good, be calm, be patient, stay patient’, stuff like this, ‘and if you would now put counter-pressing into that, that would be really helpful’.
“Because then we’d have much more possession phases, longer possession phases, they are less organised in these moments.
“Then we all know, we saw these games before, the situations don’t get clearer with time.
“We score one, then little gaps open up, but with a 0-0 and the idea of Luton – completely fine, nothing wrong with that – set-pieces, counter-attacks, they stay in the game.
“So you have to make sure, beforehand, that they are not in the game anymore. But they were in the game.”
As Klopp continued, he lablled the 1-1 draw a “strange game,” which it can certainly be described as, with Liverpool having enough chances to run away with the result.
According to FotMob, the final scoreline in terms of xG was 0.81-3.04, with the Reds having created chances clear enough to score three goals.
Six big chances were created, and six missed, with Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah all culpable of wasting opportunities at close range.
“Credit to Luton, they did really well,” Klopp continued.
“But even with all they did, we created chances and didn’t finish them off with the last conviction, to be 100 percent honest.
“We were not calm enough in these moments. We should have scored and we should have created more.
“But, first and foremost, it was alright. We probably created enough, just put one or two to bed and it’s fine, you win 1-0, 2-0 and it’s absolutely fine.
“Nobody won here with a crazy result. I knew before why but now I felt it, that they do really well.”
