Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said he has failed to get the message across to his team about how he wants them to play as they look to get their season back on track following a run of poor form.
Liverpool have gone five league games without a win and Thursday’s 1-0 defeat by Burnley was their first loss at Anfield in nearly four years, leaving the Premier League champions six points off current leaders Manchester United.
“We go again, there’s no doubt about that. When things don’t work out on the pitch as we want them to, there’s an issue,” Klopp told reporters ahead of Sunday’s FA Cup fourth round tie against United.
“How I understand the issue is the things I tell the boys, I didn’t tell them clear enough. So I have to change the way I tell the boys and we have to change the way we play.”
Liverpool have not scored in four league games for the first time since May 2000 and Klopp said he was looking to rebuild confidence in the squad.
“Confidence is not naturally given to normal people so some things have to work out to build confidence. It didn’t work out in the final third for us in the last few games,” he added.
“We haven’t got the results we wanted for a few weeks now. Some parts of our game were absolutely good enough and some were not. So we have to keep going with the things that were good and improve the others.”
Liverpool drew 0-0 with United in the league last week and Klopp said he would name a strong lineup in the tie at Old Trafford.
“We want to win the game, that’s clear. The game will be decided on the night. That’s how we will make the lineup,” he said.
“We want to go through and for that we have to play really well. United are in a really good moment.”