Jurgen Klopp insists it is far too early to judge whether the current Liverpool side have come to the end of their cycle and has vowed to give everything to turn their fortunes around.
The Merseysiders lost back-to-back matches against teams in the relegation zone for the first time in over a decade after defeats to Nottingham Forest and Leeds United, and they are now closer to the bottom three than the top four.
With a number of ageing players in their team, it has been suggested that Liverpool’s dominance over recent seasons is coming to an end and a new cycle – with new players – needs to begin.
Asked if he is concerned that the current Liverpool side have reached the end of their cycle and are now simply in decline, Klopp responded: ‘I think the judgement for this will be later on in the season. Maybe at the end of the season people will say, “OK well obviously now that’s it for this group of players” whatever, or for this manager, whatever the question will be asked then.
‘But in the moment it’s not 100 per cent fair to judge the team – and that means the squad, obviously – because we never had them available, we miss now especially up front top-quality which is not helpful. That doesn’t mean the others aren’t top quality, they have that, but with the amount of games we have you usually would make changes but we can’t do that.