Klopp: Brighton deserved historic win over mentally fatigued Liverpool

LIVERPOOL got the right result, a home defeat to Brighton, on Wednesday night, Jurgen Klopp has admitted.

The Reds were beaten 1-0 at home by the Seagulls through Steven Alzate’s 56th minute goal, and the Liverpool manager said he had no complaints about the result.

The victory was Brighton’s first over Liverpool in Premier League history

“First and foremost, Brighton won the game and rightly so, [it was] deserved,” Klopp told the media.

“They were fresher than us and did more good things than we did. We lost too many easy balls. The best way to defend Brighton is to keep the ball, to play football yourself and when we did that, we had control at least but didn’t create a lot. 

“I said now plenty of times in all the interviews outside, for me the team looked tonight – and it’s long ago we looked like this – fatigued, mentally fatigued and that leads to not the best legs as well. 

“It was a tough week and today we were not fresh enough, that means then [not] good enough to break the formation of Brighton. In the end, they scored a goal, had other chances, we kind of as well, but they scored and that’s why they deserved to win.”

Liverpool are now seven points behind Premier League leaders Manchester City, who have a game in hand, and Klopp believes his side’s only route back into the title race is to beat City on Sunday.

He said: “The gap to City, I know, I’m manager of Liverpool and I have to say [because] you always ask and we were champions last year, so I have to say, ‘Yeah, oh my God, we want to be champions…’ Yes, we want [that], but you need the games for it, you need the performances for it, and we don’t have.

“So, that’s the truth as well. We fight for other things, we fight for three points. It is not decided yet who will get the three points on Sunday, so we have to play better and we will try as well. Then we will see. “These gaps are not interesting in the moment because they are the result of the results we had already. What we can influence is the next games and we will try for that. For tonight, it was not enough – we saw that, we know that and we have to change that.”

Brighton outplayed Liverpool and won at Anfield just four days after dominating and beating Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur.

Klopp said he was not surprised by the performance of Graham Potter’s side.

“Not at all. I said before the game, I see Brighton quite frequently,” he noted.

“They were good. So they had a few counter-attacks when we tried really hard, that’s when Caoimhin was outstanding and kept us in the game. 

“Definitely if we are 1-0 up they don’t have these counter-attacks, that’s clear. They scored a goal, they had a clear idea – so it’s passing the ball or chipping the ball to Burn and go from there. 

“We had our moments. Again, the best way to defend against Brighton is to keep the ball and for keeping the ball you have to pass the ball from A to B – and A should be Liverpool and B should be Liverpool. Very often B was Brighton because we pass the ball [to] their feet. That helped Brighton definitely. But I’m not surprised about their performance at all.”

Klopp, whose side have been ravaged by injuries this season, gave an update about two of his key players who missed Wednesday’s defeat.

“Diogo (Jota) is – I don’t know exactly – a couple of weeks, two, three, four. I’m not sure,” he offered.

“And Sadio (Mane) we will see. He might be available for the weekend, I don’t know. He didn’t train with the team today. We will see.”

Liverpool have now failed to score against Newcastle, Southampton, Manchester United, Burnley and Brighton in recent weeks; they have not scored at Anfield since December 27.

The defeat to Brighton followed another home loss to Burnley, and Liverpool have lost back-to-back Premier League home games for first time since Sept 2012. They also failed to score in three home League games in a row for the first time in 37 years.