Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has admitted that the ‘obvious’ flaw holding his team back earlier this season was consistency, having spent most of this year between seventh and ninth in the Premier League table.
But the Reds have finally found form at the right time and Monday night’s 3-0 win over Leicester at the King Power Stadium was a seventh in a row in the league. They had otherwise struggled to put together more than two successive league wins this season, with even a run of four consecutive victories split in half split in half by the six-week break for the World Cup.
Fifth-place Liverpool are now assured of playing at least some form of European football next season, which could yet be the Champions League after closing the gap on both Newcastle and Manchester United ahead of them to just a single point – although, both do have a game extra to play.
“Six, seven weeks ago I didn’t believe it could happen,” Klopp said of guaranteeing European football will be played at Anfield in 2023/24.
“What we lacked at the time was obviously consistency,” he added.
“There was only one way for us to do it, by pretty much winning all of our games. It is crazy but that was the situation we were in. We knew before the game that we would qualify for the Europa League if we won the game, which is absolutely great from where we have come from.
“The rest is not in our hands but we know we have to win all the games until the end of the season to have a chance [of qualifying for the Champions League]. Our job is to keep the pressure on. It’s not likely, but if not then this is already better than we could have expected six, seven weeks ago.”
Liverpool had a similarly strong end to the 2020/21 season to eventually finish third in the final Premier League table. On that occasion, they had been eighth with 10 games to go after losing at home to Fulham, only to then take 26 from the final 30 on offer to shoot up the standings.
