Ahead of Liverpool’s Capital One Cup semi-final clash manager Jurgen Klopp says his Liverpool side now believe that “everything is possible” as the club look to secure their place in the final.
Liverpool go into the second leg with a 1 goal advantage over Stoke City and are high on confidence after a dramatic injury-time win over Norwich City.
This was the 3rd time in the last six weeks that an injury time goal has earned Liverpool points and Klopp insists that this shows a change in the mentality of his players.
“We have a striking back mentality now,” Klopp said ahead of the second-leg at Anfield.
“We spoke from the first minute about this, after the defeat to Crystal Palace when fans were leaving the stadium early, about how eight minutes is enough time for six goals.
“Everything is possible. It is not what you say, it is more how you live in the group altogether.
“For me, it is really easy because I had so many big defeats in my life that if I didn’t strike back I would not be here. To accept a situation is the biggest mistake you can make in the sport.
“Sometimes you have to respect and accept something, but then you have to react in the right way. That is what you have to learn.
“The boys know how it works because they have played football for 15 years, some of them longer. For this you need the results, you need the experience together that it works and then you start believing in it.
“This is a difficult season for a lot of teams in the league and for us too. We have to really take everything we can and try and get better in each small part of the game.”
Today’s game will be Liverpool’s 8th in the month of January which has been more like a roller-coaster ride for the Kop. The team has been inconsistent and Klopp believes it is down to the injuries.
“The performance of my team is not as surprising to me as you would imagine,” he said.
“Yeah, we have been inconsistent. But if you take a few parts out of the game and analyse you find we have a lot of things always there with a similar line up. If we have to change the line up then immediately a few things change.”
Klopp, who is yet to lose a semi-final in his entire managerial career is not thinking too much about the past.
“I don’t think too much about the past. It doesn’t help to think about these things. Last year I don’t know why but some things went wrong in the semi-finals.
“The only thing that stays in the mind is that we lost. We should be fully focused on this game. That’s the only way to win it.
“There are no guarantees of course. But I try to only use things that I think will help us. This is a different team, different situation, different manager, different opponent.
“It wasn’t Stoke last season, it was Chelsea. We don’t need to think about that.”l