Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp praises his players for wholehearted effort

Manager says team were ‘98% OK’ in his first Anfield game 
• Europa League draw with Rubin Kazan described as ‘a start’

The football is clearly still a work in progress but Liverpool supporters got a strong flavour of Jürgen Klopp’s management style after the 1-1 draw with Rubin Kazan, despite the Russian side playing with 10 men for an hour.

“OK, it was not a masterclass,” the German admitted after his new side proved unable to overcome 10 men in the second half. “But come on, it was not boring either. It was not the worst day in my life.”

Klopp appears incapable of being boring. For someone speaking in a second language he can be colourful and humorous. “I received a very warm welcome before the kick-off, in fact that turned out to be one of the best moments of the night for me,” he joked.

“I don’t really want to keep talking about myself, though, when I went out on to the pitch I was trying to concentrate on the game. When you move into a new house for the first time you are normally supposed to bring a present. I am not quite satisfied with my present tonight but it is only the first time. There will be other occasions, I will come again.”

Klopp claimed he had seen an interesting game, and praised the quality of Liverpool’s Russian opponents, currently in 12th place in their domestic league. “It was quite a big challenge, everyone could see they were not too bad,” he said. “They were very experienced, very cool and they made a very good first goal. When they went down to 10 men they changed their game and that can be a challenge in itself.

“Opponents who lose a man sometimes stop playing football and defend in a compact block. We had our moments, we hit the post in the second half, but in the end no goal. So I would say it was 98% OK, not perfect, the other two per cent is just down to decision making. We can still come back in Kazan. That is our challenge.”

The Liverpool manager was asked by a Russian journalist if it was part of his special mission in England to reintroduce Premier League clubs to the romance of pure football and prove there was more to the game than money. Klopp politely replied that it was not.

“If that is part of my brief then I haven’t been told,” he said. “I’m here to manage a football club, I didn’t know I was supposed to change the English game. I don’t think I am strong enough or smart enough to do that. We must develop our game so our supporters can enjoy it. Today they had moments they could enjoy, they could see players putting their whole hearts on the pitch. Maybe it wasn’t world-changing, but football can be like that. We made a start.”

Even Valeri Chali, the opposing coach, was asked what he thought of Klopp’s Anfield debut. He declined to join everyone else on the welcome mat, though oddly enough he too mentioned presents. “It was a tough game, and with 10 men we put in a decent performance,” he said. “We had to work hard to take something from the game. We did not turn up here to give Mr Klopp a present on his first day. This is football and a draw was a fair result.”