Jurgen Klopp said he was baffled by Liverpool’s surprise defeat against Burnley in which they had more than 80 percent of possession, but still lost 2-0 to the newly promoted club.
Reds boss Klopp said he thought his team had actually seen more like 90 percent of the ball at Turf Moor on Saturday, but they failed to create a single noteworthy chance as first-half goals from Sam Vokes and Andre Gray earned Sean Dyche’s team their first points of the season.
“How can I be happy with this?” Klopp said. “When we gave away the first goal they defended for their lives. Both of their strikers, Andre Gray and Sam Vokes, are really hard workers.”
Photo: Reuters
“We had absolutely no luck and everybody needs to be more clinical,” he said. “We have to accept it: Burnley deserved to win with a very passionate performance. We have to say it was not enough today.”
Klopp was critical of his team’s defensive efforts in the opening 4-3 victory against Arsenal and, after conceding a further two goals at Turf Moor, Liverpool have kept just two clean sheets in their past 13 league games.
“We saw the situations coming around the goals, but that doesn’t mean you should still concede the goals,” he said. “It was a difficult game for us, we passed the ball, lost the ball at the wrong moments.”
Burnley boss Dyche was dismissive of the statistic of possession and said that, as his team proved emphatically against Liverpool, it often has little bearing on the result of a game.
“Possession doesn’t win you games,” Dyche said. “That myth came out a few years ago and Leicester City proved it was a myth last year.”
“Liverpool had five or six men in midfield at all times and if I did that I would have the ball for a long time, but that doesn’t win you the game. I want to penetrate, create and take chances,” he said. “I don’t think there will be many teams who get the ball as much as Liverpool, they get so many bodies in there.”
Dyche could take particular pleasure, not only in securing a first victory of the campaign at just the second time of asking, but also in seeing his two forwards get off the mark — in the case of Vokes, ending a 27-game run without a Premier League goal dating back to 2009.
“Both strikers are off the mark and they feel good about it,” Dyche said. “The win was important because it means you [media] don’t keep dragging up the statistic of how long since we won.”
In other games on Saturday, Stoke City lost 4-1 to Manchester City 4, Swansea City were defeated 2-0 by Hull City, Tottenham Hotspur beat Crystal Palace 1-0,
Watford went down 2-1 to Chelsea, West Bromich Albion lost to Everton 2-1, and Leicester and Arsenal played out a goalless draw.
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