His stint in England was off to a slow start, but newly-installed Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp insists that he is not planning large scale changes to the squad that he inherited from previous incumbent Brendan Rodgers.
Liverpool, who is 10th on the English Premier League (EPL) standings when Klopp arrived at Anfield, produced their best performance of the current season to beat Chelsea 3-1 at home on Saturday to climb to the eighth place with 17 points from 11 matches.
It was a welcome result for Klopp, who endured a series of underwhelming performances from the players since taking over last month. Liverpool came back from a goal down to win at Stamford Bridge, the first time they have done so in 10 months.
“I have been here three weeks, but everyone tells me ‘you want to buy this player, this player, this player’ But development is to work with the players you have,” Klopp was quoted as saying by the Daily Star on Monday.
“It’s like if you have a problem with your wife, you don’t want to change every day!”
The German has been impressed by in-form Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho, who scored twice the win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The 23-year-old struggled at first to adapt to Klopp’s demanding pressing game, but was on song to claim his first goals since scoring the winner in the opening day victory at Stoke.
“Who can’t love Phil Coutinho? I don’t expect all day perfection. I expect you to work and try to get better every day. That is what Phil is doing and what the team is doing. That is how we make the next steps,” Klopp said.
“Phil is a brilliant player and we don’t have to talk about his qualities. Sometimes you have to work really, really hard to make football look easy. That is what he did against Chelsea. It was not a perfect start for Phil. But he came back and he was cool enough in the right moment, to shoot at the right moment. That is his quality of course.
“I’m not interested in what happened before with Phil. I have spoken to him, yes of course. But my job is to help him, not to say what he is not doing good. He knows the last three games were not perfect but he needs the games. He needs the experience in games to feel what is good and what is wrong. This is the perfect example. The start was not good. But then we came back,” he added.
The former Borussia Dortmund manager is hoping that Saturday’s result will bring much needed confidence to the Liverpool players and spark a turnaround in their dismal season.
“Cool, hey! We have to see what it does,” Klopp said. “But not always is the sun shining. We have to work hard on days when it is raining for the team. Everyone asks me every day if I have seen the next step. When you come in and bring new ideas, new information, everything... my experience is that quality goes down a little bit,” he added.
“You try to play from here (pointing to his chest) but you lose your coolness, your flexibility and your fun for the game. You have to take the new information and develop.”
