Jurgen Klopp has admitted he made his Liverpool team selection against Swansea with Thursday’s Europa League semi-final in mind but thinks the side he put out should have beaten the Swans.
Klopp put out a much-changed side for the Reds’ Premier League contest in south Wales, making eight changes to his line-up and in the process naming Liverpool’s youngest side ever in the Premier League.
The move contributed to his team’s downfall as two goals from Andre Ayew and a spectacular effort by Jack Cork saw Swansea defeat the Merseyside outfit 3 -1 at the Liberty Stadium.
Klopp has confessed that the team he picked was due to wanting to keep his regular first team players fit for the crucial match with Villarreal in the week but feels the side he put out against Swansea had the capability to win, and is therefore still disappointed with the result.
Speaking in his post match press-conference the German said: “Now, in this moment, from now on it’s the Europa League – and then next Sunday it will be the Premier League.
“What can I say? Do you think we say ‘let’s put everything in this game’ and then ignore the rest of the games? That’s not how it can work. Life is like it is. We played really well with different line-ups in the last few games. Today we didn’t.
“I’m disappointed, yes, because I think we could have won this game with a normal performance, but obviously we were not able to.
“Now we will prepare for the second leg in the Europa League and we will see what happens. Then another minimum three games in the Premier League and hopefully another game in the Europa League.”
Winning against Villarreal, who hold a 1-0 advantage from the first-leg, would see the Merseyside outfit into the final and victory in that would secure Liverpool a place in the Champions League next season.
It was nonetheless a disappointing result for Liverpool, who had been unbeaten in their previous five league matches.
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