Klopp: Trophies will dictate success of season

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. Peter Byrne/PA Wire.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists reaching three semi-finals in one season cannot be considered a success if it is not translated into trophies.

His side are already one from one having won the Carabao Cup in February, and have a chance to extend their 100% record in the last four of the FA Cup against Manchester City at Wembley as they seek to keep an unlikely quadruple on track.

They also have a Champions League encounter to come against Villarreal later this month, with the club having reached a third major semi-final in the same season for the first time in their history.

But Klopp said their progress in an incredible campaign so far would count for little if they cannot back it up with more silverware.

“Imagine if we had done the same for five years, heh? That would be great! Three semi-finals and winning nothing. The world is not ready for this kind of success…” he joked.

“I’m really happy for the boys. It is so difficult to do something that our fathers and grandfathers didn’t do already.

“This specific thing, nobody did it in this club so it is really special. But, yeah… I know if that is the success this year, it will not be seen as success in the future.” 

Klopp was asked whether he considered a win-or-bust one-off match against Manchester City at Wembley as their biggest game of the run-in and whether it could affect their mindset in terms of what it meant for the remainder of the campaign.

“No. We don’t know. We don’t think about the quadruple,” he added.

“Imagine if I was to sit here and you would not ask me about it but I would just constantly start referring to the quadruple. If I did that you would think I was completely mad.

“It is massive, huge, brutal. But we get nothing from it because three days later we play against Manchester United (in the Premier League).

“We are not short of confidence and we don’t need any reason to want to be successful. Yes, winning against City would be outstanding, it doesn’t happen too often for anybody in the world of football and if you can achieve it, outstanding.

“But they are crazy good. There is not one percent that if we win we are a step closer to whatever you want to call it.

“It means we are in the final of the FA Cup, which would then mean we play against Crystal Palace or Chelsea and none of them are somehow like a tourist.

“So we don’t think about it for a second until after the game. We don’t look further and at the ‘bigger picture’. That is not how it is, at least not for me.” 

The epic nature of their tussles with City have become a staple of the Premier League since Klopp arrived in England in 2015, the season after Pep Guardiola was appointed by Manchester City.

Both managers acknowledge they have helped raise each other’s standards by the levels they are reaching on the pitch, but Klopp admits it has taken its toll off it.

“Only recently I saw a picture of me in 2005. I saw a picture of when I arrived here too. I see myself now every morning so the last six years have been pretty ‘intense’! I see a different person,” he said.

“Until Tuesday Chelsea had exactly the same programme as us. The same amount of games because of the League Cup final and these kind of things. Thomas (Tuchel) said it, it’s really super intense. But it’s good fun as well.

“In the year that we got to the Champions League final and won that (in 2019) we didn’t have the squad size but we came through.

“It is always intense. This year is especially intense but it is enjoyable and exciting. Is it likely that we win the four competitions? No. Three competitions? No. One more? Hopefully. That would be nice.”

For his part,  Guardiola insists he will not make excuses as he prepares his battered and bruised Manchester City side for today's semi-final.

Treble-chasing City face their chief title rivals in a Wembley showdown just three days after a draining and ill-tempered Champions League clash against Atletico Madrid in the Spanish capital.

The game is also the fourth of an intense 12-day spell in which they also played the first leg of their quarter-final tie against Atletico and participated in an exhilarating 2-2 draw with Liverpool in the Premier League.

Star playmaker Kevin De Bruyne and right-back Kyle Walker are major doubts having suffered foot and ankle injuries respectively in the fraught midweek encounter, while Phil Foden also required treatment for a head wound.

Yet while this may play into the hands of Liverpool, Guardiola is not complaining.

The City manager said: "Semi-finals of the FA Cup are always hard against this side, even with the top players fit and rested.

"I've learned as a manager when you arrive in the latter stages in all competitions you adapt to the schedule. If you want to complain (for a safety) net, you make a mistake. It is what it is.

"We have fought every season like this and we go through, and we are going to perform well.

"I said to the players I don't want any excuses."