Liverpool's Boss Jurgen Klopp Warns Players On Title Race Following Defeat To Leicester City.

Liverpool's boss Jurgen Klopp has insisted that he his is more concerned about finding an immediate solution to his performances and cutting the gap between them and Pep Guardiola's men.

The Reds suffered their second defeat in the Premier League this season after losing 1-0 to Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night.

Mo Salah's first-half penalty was saved by Kasper Schmeichel, making it his first missed penalty out of his last 16 penalties in the Premier League.

Ademola Lookman who came off the bench in the 56th minute scored the only goal of the night in just 3 minutes of his introduction.

The goal for Lookman made it a back-to-back Premier League goals for the first time in his career, having scored against Man City on boxing day, and now Liverpool.

Leicester had only kept two clean sheets in the league all season before their monumental defensive partnership from Ghanian Daniel Amartey, and Nigerian Wilfred Ndidi made it a third cleansheets for the foxes.

The African duo becomes the first central defensive partnership to stop goal-hungry Liverpool team from scoring this season. The Reds failed to score for the first time in 29 Premier League games, and for the first time since a 1-0 home loss to Fulham in March.

Brendan Rodgers side were depleted with defensive injuries before the game, first-choice central defenders Wesley Fofana, Jonny Evans and Calgar Soyuncu were all unfit for the action.

The victory for the Foxes was some revenge for their Carabao Cup elimination via Penalties last week at Anfield, and a welcome boost after losing 6-3 to Man City on Boxing Day. 

"The players put in a heroic effort when you think of the recovery time against a team with so much power and athleticism"... Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers said.

"You don't keep a clean sheet against Liverpool if everyone isn't working. But it was the context of it after playing against Manchester City.

"We defended properly tonight, The centre-halves were amazing but they all played their part. Collectively, we did really well".

It was a miserable night for Jurgen Klopp's side as they failed to close the six-point gap to Premier League leaders Manchester City who could extend that margin to nine-points with a victory away to Brentford on Wednesday night.

The 1-0 defeat sees Liverpool ends 2021 in the same way they started it, failing to score in an away match against Southampton on January 4th, 2021.

Jurgen Klopp speaking after the game said;

"We were just not good enough,". "It was well deserved for Leicester, a very strange game. We were just not really ourselves tonight, We played a very bad game. I didn't like 100 per cent the intensity even at the beginning.

"We started OK, then completely lost our rhythm and weren't calm enough to get it back. That's our fault. The circumstances too Leicester played two days ago, they deserve it, absolutely."

"We should have defended better," Klopp added. "There were so many performances before normal level, there's no explanation. It's a big gap to City.

"It was not our plan to give them the chance to run away. If we play like tonight, we don't have to think about catching them but if we play as we normally do we can win games and get maximum points.

"My main concern is to find an explanation for tonight, not the gap to City.

"We have to do better, improve and go again."

Liverpool not scoring against Leicester means Arsenal 2001-02 double-winning side, remains the only team in Premier League history to maintain an impressive record of scoring in every single game in an entire season. 

The Gunners finished seven points ahead of the Reds that season as Arsene Wenger won his second domestic title in English football

Liverpool next game is a visit against Chelsea on Sunday, 2nd January 2022, and could find themselves 12 points behind City if the league leaders stretch their winning run against Brentford and Arsenal on New Year Day.

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