The tight schedule in the winter has been the main reason for Liverpool’s downfall, Jürgen Klopp stated.
The Reds were having a torrid 2017 and hadn’t been able to register a single win in the Premier League until the match against Tottenham Hotspur. They rode on a spirited display from Sadio Mane as the winger scored a brace to end Liverpool’s awful run.
The Reds managed their second win in 11 games in the ongoing season. Their only win came against Plymouth in the FA Cup. Barring that they lost against Swansea, Hull City and Drew against Chelsea in that period.
The Reds had to play 12 games in 40 matches and Klopp claimed the packed fixture has taken a toll on the players.
He said, “December-January. Not even Chelsea came through without no problems but they were able to play the same team all the time. They left the EFL Cup when, before it started? [It was the fourth round] I don’t remember them playing one game in that competition. ‘Get rid of this.’ I spoke to Antonio [Conte] for a long time at Anfield, maybe 25 minutes, and he mentioned it [the fixture schedule] but said they could play the same 13-14 players all the time. That is the big difference.
“In December we missed players and did not have the best schedule. From 31 December to 2 January you could see the difference physically. Oh, my God – what have we done? It was not that we had all the players to change it at Sunderland. It was a few things. On a few things we had an influence and on others we did not have an influence – we conceded goals, offside against us, penalty against us.”
