Jurgen Klopp relaxed over Liverpool quit talk from 'fantastic professional' Alberto Moreno

Out in the cold: Alberto Moreno
Liverpool FC via Getty Images
David Lynch28 December 2018

Jurgen Klopp has played down Alberto Moreno's recent comments over his unhappiness at Liverpool and hailed the defender as a 'fantastic professional'.

In an interview with Spanish radio station Onda Cero this week, Moreno voiced his displeasure at losing his place to Andy Robertson last season after suffering an injury in December.

He said: "I thought when I recovered that at least I deserved an opportunity. I kept training but it was always Robertson, Robertson, Robertson... So I wasn't very happy with how the coach handled it."

The Spaniard also set his sights on a return to his homeland at the end of the current campaign when the five-year deal he signed following a 2014 move from Sevilla comes to an end.

But, when pressed for a response to Moreno's interview, Klopp took the diplomatic route.

In Pictures | Liverpool vs Newcastle | 26/12/2018

1/25

He said: “Matt [the club's press officer] told me about it! I’m still not prepared to say something to be honest.

"How I deal with things like that is usually: my door is not always literally open, but it’s always open if somebody wants to talk. As long as they don’t talk to me, it doesn’t really exist!

“But that Alberto is not happy with not having too much minutes, it’s obvious. The more important thing is he never shows it in any training sessions, he’s a fantastic professional and trains really well when he can.

"The last couple of weeks he has had back problems and that kept him out of a lot of sessions. Yesterday was the first session it looked 100 per cent good again. That’s all.”

Liverpool could barely have asked for a better festive period in terms of their title chances, having extended their winning Premier League run to eight while Manchester City suffered defeats to Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Leicester City.

However, Klopp insists he is still focused on his team's primary target before the campaign began: Champions League qualification.

He continued: “Not a lot to be honest. We don’t think about the distance before, it is too early. If we are six clear and there is one game to go, it’s a big moment! But nothing happened so far.

“To explain our situation, if we spoke about targets before the season; it’s clear that a team like Liverpool, size of club, quality of team, we should go for Champions League qualification. That was our target, 100 per cent. We did it twice in a row, and we want to improve as a team, be more consistent, more stable, stuff like that.

"We are still on that way, nothing else. The only difference to last year is our situation is better. We are not even qualified for the Champions League yet, so that means we need to play football and try to get results. Then we will see what happens. Nothing changed.

“My feeling was like that after the game. It was not a little bit of celebration, because it is just not time for that. We play Arsenal, City, Wolves, Brighton, there is no time to think. Just to think about the next opponent, who require all our concentration.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in