Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool have learnt their lessons from the Europa League final misery
Anfield boss says painful night in Basel cannot be repeated by his new-look side this season
LIVERPOOL will sit through the Kloppy Horror Show – to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes this season.
Jurgen Klopp’s first six months at Anfield ended in a Europa League final showdown with Sevilla.
Yet after leading at the break, the Reds turned in their worst 45 minutes under the German, as they leaked three goals – the first just seconds after the restart.
It is a performance that still brings a shudder to manager Klopp – and one he is desperate to avoid again, as he enters his first full season in charge.
Yet now the dust has settled on that black night in Basel, the Kop boss insists there have been lessons learned, however harsh they may have been at the time.
Klopp said: “It was a hard night and a hard few days afterwards. But it is in the past and, like all games in the past, if you can use them you should do.
“You have to take the right thoughts from it and that’s what we’ll try to do, but that’s not easy.
“You can’t bring all this up in the first meeting and say ‘look, I hope you had a wonderful holiday, but I want to tell you the second half in Basel was not so good.’
“That wouldn’t make sense. It’s an experience, one that you don’t need, but we will get on with it.
“In the second half, conceding 18 seconds in was too soon. When you watch it again you see that something broke at that moment.
“Different players had no weapons any more – they had no power and no confidence. You saw that.
“We went too deep in a lot of positions and we were not close enough to the challenges. All of it was not too good.
“Of course it was about the intensity we had had on the way to the final. We’d had to over-perform one or two times, and we’d had a lot of games.
“We’d tried everything to have fresh legs for it, but none of this is an excuse because this was not a final we should have lost but we lost and that’s the truth.
“We had no luck in the game, while Sevilla had a few moments in the first half when they needed a bit of luck and had it.”
Since that hiding, Klopp has been busy shaking up his squad and has brought in four new faces.
Sadio Mane, Joel Matip, Loris Karius and Marko Grujic may not be as high profile as certain other arrivals, yet the Kop boss has been delighted with every one.
Already they have impressed in Liverpool’s three light workouts, at Tranmere, Fleetwood and Wigan.
And Klopp admitted it has all helped gradually ease the agony of the Reds’ last competitive action.
He added: “Of course it still feels bad and you have moments when you still suffer a little bit. But it’s over and it doesn’t feel as bad now as it did at the time.”