Jürgen Klopp Towards Sparta Prague Second Leg: ‘We have to ignore the first leg result’

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Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp said his team will have to ignore their first leg victory over Sparta Prague ahead of their upcoming Europa Cup second leg.

Reds beat Sparta Prague 5-1 at Sparta Prague’s home, but are now to host them at Merseyside.

Speaking during a press conference which was held on Wednesday, the coach said the following on whether his recent victory over the visitors would affect his choice of players this time:

‘I think it’s really important that whatever football game you play you should… sometimes you have to chase a game and if we lost the first game 1-0 you cannot ignore the first one, or drew, then still you just have to win the game first and foremost, and then you will see how much that means, the result you can get.

‘And for us it just means that means that we want to play the best possible football game, that’s always the way we decided about the line-up. I couldn’t tell you in this moment what I will do even if I wanted to.

‘I wouldn’t but I couldn’t [anyway] because after that I go to the training ground and in these times you wait until the last second and then everybody tells you, ‘He has a niggle here, he has a niggle there and he might need an extra day’ or these kind of things.

‘We had that yesterday already with a few players who needed an extra day, so let’s see how that looks now today and then I make my decision about the line-up.

‘But the idea for the line-up will be to have the best legs for that game because that’s what we need, because we have to ignore the [first-leg] result, I would say, but not the performance and performance-wise they had massive chances against us. They caused us massive problems in moments.

‘Caoimh [Kelleher] had to make a few outstanding saves and that’s in my mind, not how we scored the goals and stuff like this because that was mainly individual quality. There was a few good football situations as well but it was individual quality a lot, so we need to keep rhythm for this part of the season now.

‘It’s not about on and off, it’s about keep the rhythm and keep going and don’t think about the next game on Sunday, even when the opponent is Manchester United.’

Sparta Prague will be looking to revenge, but the ravine they must cross to come out on top might border on the herculean.