Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has given an appraisal of his side’s season after their 4 – 4 draw on the last day of the 2022/23 Premier League.
The Reds travelled to the Saints’ home ground for a novelty game as their fate was confirmed the week before. The travelling fans expected to see a dominant performance from their team against their hosts, who had already been relegated a few weeks prior.
The match turned out to be an entertaining one for both sets of fans, especially Southampton fans, who saw a side to their team that they wished they could have seen during the course of the season. An eight-goal thriller ensued and Klopp praised Southampton for the fight they showed while speaking generally on the season his team has had.
“A top start, outstanding finish [and] in between… Let me start with the most important [thing], I really thought and felt from the first second today [that] Southampton is a really good club,” Klopp said. “When you see the people when you’ve been relegated, which is obviously the worst thing you want to happen, and the atmosphere is like the atmosphere was like today then, I have to say, it is pretty special.
“I liked it a lot.
“Then we are 2-0 up and we knew the Southampton players want to pay back to these people – and we let them. We just opened the door for a really talented, offensive team – the counter-attack with the speed they have.”
Klopp then compared the game to Liverpool’s season as a whole. He stated that the game started well and they played “silly” football which Southampton capitalised on to almost come back to a win, before his side did the right things to secure a draw.
The former Borussia Dortmund manager admitted that while they are disappointed to not make the top four, there were teams that were better than them. He also insinuated that fifth place is more than what they deserve while stating that his side will learn from the “very bad season” to come back stronger and be contenders next season.
“We played a bad season and we came fifth, that is a message as well,” the German coach said. “Imagine we are more our normal self, which we absolutely will be again next season, then we will be a contender again.
“The last 10, 11 games helped us to realise that again because before then from a consistency point of view [it was] a season very difficult to understand.
“We understood how we came into the situation, but there were so many moments when we thought we’d sorted it now and then a week later we saw not yet. That was the problem and that’s it.
“It’s over and now we can start preparing for the future.”
