Liverpool’s failings at the back returned in untimely fashion at Arsenal on Friday but Jürgen Klopp has rejected the idea that his team’s default programming is too offensive and contended that his first thought is to defend.
“We have a defending approach,” he said when asked whether the kind of attacking football that has reaped rich dividends for the majority of the season was Liverpool’s natural instinct. “We played 4-5-1 and they all have responsibility to defend. As long as they do it, we can line up quite offensive player-wise. There is nobody on the pitch who is not involved in defending.
“I want to defend first of all because that is the basis for everything. The best thing to do is to defend with 10 offensive players because when you have the ball it’s much more likely that you will score.”
Although Liverpool had conceded only twice in the six games before their 3-3 draw at the Emirates Stadium, it was the fourth time this season they have shipped three goals or more. Defensive errors have crept in at important times and Arsenal’s comeback from 2-0 down owed much to individual blunders from the right-back Joe Gomez and Simon Mignolet, the goalkeeper.
“It’s obvious that everyone saw the mistakes and Simon – that will never happen again,” Klopp said. “He never conceded a goal like that so we don’t have to make a big deal of it. And Joe – so good, such a fantastic improvement and development, outstanding. He’s still a young lad and we have to learn.”
Swansea City’s visit to Anfield will spark memories of another occasion on which Liverpool’s defensive strategy fell short. They won 3-2 at Anfield, their first maximum-points return under the recently sacked manager Paul Clement, in January but Klopp is confident that Liverpool, unbeaten in the league since 22 October, are performing in a manner that should bring even better results.
“We cannot force results – the result is the kid of the performance,” he said. “We have to perform to get a result as Liverpool. We cannot stand deep and defend with 10 players. That doesn’t work at Anfield to be honest, and doesn’t work anywhere else, so we need to be creative in a few moments. I spoke about consistency of performance and I really think we are there. Results-wise we can improve 100%.”