Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp concedes a top four finish is slipping away.
Klopp’s men are currently seven points adrift of fourth-placed Manchester United, and the German manager has conceded that Liverpool have their work cut out to get back into the Champions League.
“Reaching the Champions League is of course extremely important for us. That’s insanely difficult,” Klopp told BILD.
“People are a bit spoiled there because we’ve mostly made it early in recent years. If it works out this year, it will be a late decision. It may take a while for us to catch up. But we know what we have to do.”
Klopp also said: “We had to pay a bit of the bill for the last year, which was incredibly intense.
“Then the preparation was difficult: short vacation, then a trip to Asia, suffered early injuries and brought some from the old season. And then you have to juggle – players who are injured have to play early. Others who are not injured have to play too often. It all came together.
“And then we play in a pretty good league. It doesn’t matter what your problem is. You have to be there immediately. We then stabilised, but now we have injury problems again: Diogo Jota is still not back, Luis Díaz is injured again. That’s brutal.
“We don’t look for excuses, we have to fight our way through. The head is 100% there.”
