Jurgen Klopp expressed that Liverpool would have beaten Manchester United if they played "a little bit better" after their 2-1 defeat, but also admitted that he was concerned about his team's injury problems. Klopp defended his team's performance despite their first Premier League defeat at Old Trafford since March 2018 as he stressed the fact that the Reds had "played the game they wanted to play" after Jadon Sancho's 16th-minute opening goal .
"I saw a good performance," said Klopp. "If we score the equaliser at any time it is not the biggest surprise. We could have won the game tonight if we had played slightly better. They were really aggressive in the beginning, it was absolutely clear what would happen. Reality shows if we are really ready, and in the beginning, they were more aggressive than us, they hit the post and it was a hectic game. Then they scored the goal, and we took over and played the game we wanted to play, more or less,” the German manager added.
Klopp further talked about how the team were extremely unlucky, especially during the set-pieces. He said, “We were unlucky with situations, especially around set-pieces. I don't know how one ball didn't go in, in a game like this against an opponent like United it would be very helpful if we could score in that moment and go in 1-1 at half-time.”
“Conceding the second one doesn't help, and then we score ours and then it's a hectic game with a lot of interruptions - and not the result we wanted. Maybe they were [sharper], that's not right of course but when we calmed down we were there,” he added.