Juergen Klopp admits Manchester City will be almost impossible to catch at the top of the English Premier League, but the Liverpool boss would happily settle for a top-four finish as a lucrative consolation prize.
Goals from Philippe Coutinho, Mohamed Salah, Dejan Lovren and Roberto Firmino sent the free-scoring Reds up to fourth place.
They are 18 points behind runaway leaders City, but Klopp is happy with his team’s form as they chase a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League.
Photo: Reuters
“Can City be caught? I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball, but if they struggle, like maybe nobody with their quality has struggled before, then someone should be there to use it,” Klopp said. “I don’t see it, but if I stopped working hard the moment I couldn’t be a league champion, I wouldn’t be here.”
“We have so many things to play for. It’s really hard, really intense in this league and it’ll be unbelievable the number of points you’ll need at the end of the season to get anything,” he said. “A lot of teams are in good shape, but City are winning all their games.”
Liverpool’s win over AFC Bournemouth on Sunday, their fourth consecutive victory on the road, leaves Klopp’s side only four points adrift of third-placed Chelsea.
They now have 34 points from 18 games, largely on target to match the 76 points they reached last season to finish fourth.
Egypt winger Salah has been a revelation since arriving from AS Roma, but Klopp is reluctant to talk up individuals.
“He’s got 20 goals, but what happens if he doesn’t score from now on? He didn’t score against West Brom[wich Albion], when we needed it more than today,” Klopp said. “You always talk about Mo. He knows how much I respect and like him, but I don’t go home and think: ‘How good is he?’ That’s not how it works. He’s a very important player for us, like the others, but I’m very satisfied with how we played in this game.”
“There’s not been many times since I’ve been Bournemouth manager that I’ve felt quite like this after a match. It was a disappointing watch,” said Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe, whose team are in 16th place and only one point above the relegation zone. “I have to say we were well off it. We looked flat in every way. Credit to Liverpool because they played well, but we’re disappointed with ourselves.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier