Klopp adamant 'nothing has changed' as Liverpool close in on Manchester City

Jurgen Klopp was on his way out on Saturday evening when his driver became animated about the score updates from the Etihad Stadium. “He was very excited and said it was 2-2 and then 3-2 and I thought [Manchester] City won,” he said. His reaction to discovering Tottenham had instead got the decider, he said, was: “Oh.”

Others may have had a more dramatic response, but Klopp is adopting an understated approach to the prospect of catching City. “If it was 12 points, 15 points or whatever, it would be a completely different situation. But for us, nothing changed really, we have to win all our games,” he said.

Win the first of them, against Leeds on Wednesday, and the gap at the Premier League summit, which stretched to 13 points when City beat Chelsea last month, is down to three.

“I cannot count points on our account before we played the game,” Klopp responded. The closest he came to accepting that the situation has altered was when he said: “They are not completely out of reach any more. But we have so many games to play and, yes, if we could win them all it is a title race and if not, it is probably not a title race.”

He seemed to be considering the evidence from the run-in in 2019 when City triumphed in their final 14 games. Liverpool won their last nine, ended with 97 points and were still one behind Pep Guardiola’s team. “Historically it happens more often than not that they win pretty much all theirs,” Klopp said. “I didn’t think a second about the title race.”

LIVERPOOL RATINGS: Alisson Becker - 6. The Brazilian’s main contribution was the long ball that set up Salah to give Liverpool the lead. Had no chance with Rashica’s deflected goal. Getty

He has concentrated more of his attention on Leeds. Their first game