Klopp confident Liverpool will make UCL last-16 despite 1-1 draw with Spartak Moscow

Klopp confident Liverpool will make UCL last-16 despite 1-1 draw with Spartak Moscow

Jurgen Klopp is still confident Liverpool will reach the knockout rounds of the Champions League despite their 1-1 draw with Spartak Moscow on Tuesday night.

Liverpool were held to another frustrating draw to leave them with two points after as many group matches, wasting a number of golden chances to pick up a win at the Otkrytie Arena.

Spartak’s Fernando put the hosts into the lead from a long-range free kick in the 23rd minute before Philippe Coutinho netted an equaliser eight minutes later.

When asked at his postmatch news conference whether he has seen enough from his team to give him confidence that they will go through to the last 16, Klopp replied: “Yes, of course I have seen enough.

“We know more about the two teams now, we were in both games the better side. We know Moscow have a lot of injury problems tonight, for sure Quincy Promes will be back for the next game and a few other players, really good players, so that will change their game also.

“But what is confidence? In football you can never be sure. Yes, we are strong enough to go through this group, but we have to do it; when the door is open, you still have to walk through it and the door is not even open, we can [just] see a little bit of light in behind.

“But we will be ready to go through because the boys really work hard. You can see that they really want [it]. Stay cool, carry on, work hard and you will succeed in the end.”

Klopp criticised the referee’s decision to award Spartak the free kick that led to the opener after Coutinho was adjudged to have upended Aleksandr Samedov.

While the Liverpool manager does not believe his side are benefiting from good fortune, he insists the number of opportunities they created is one positive to take from the game.

“We, in this moment, are not the luckiest team in world football, so it’s not that things go easy for us,” Klopp added. “We did really well in creating chances against a very defence-orientated team.

“We didn’t give a lot of chances away for them; the free kick they scored with was not a foul, so it’s difficult to change this. In defending if you win the ball clear and there’s still a whistle it’s difficult, but it was a brilliant free-kick.

“We made our equaliser, we scored and we could have created even more chances, that’s the crazy thing. We did enough and we had four or five 100-percent chances and that’s then disappointing, but it is like it is.

“In the Champions League in the group stage the only target you have is to go through the group to the next round, and that’s still possible for us.

“We know now more about two teams in the group and both games we could have, or should have, won but we didn’t. In the end, that’s always our fault, but we will carry on and carry on like this, or even better.

“I saw a lot of good things tonight, it was not a perfect game, but there were a lot of good things.”

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