The German coach says going to Wembley 'is the best thing you can in football' as he prepares to face Stoke City in the League Cup semi-final
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has urged his side to forget last season’s semi-final failures when they take on Stoke in the League Cup on Tuesday.
The Reds hold a 1-0 lead from the first leg at the Britannia Stadium but will be wary of last season when they were knocked out of the competition at the same stage by Chelsea.
Liverpool also exited the FA Cup at the semi-final stage, losing to Aston Villa, but Klopp says his team must not dwell on the past.
“Everything has changed here since last season,” Klopp said. “If you want to solve problems, you can take the problem, talk about it, find solutions for it and in the end you can find yourself facing the same problem.
“The other option is you ignore it completely and say ‘It was only one time’ or, in last season’s case, two times. Or you prepare yourself for a semi-final and that’s what we want to do. 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. This is a different team, a different situation, a different manager and different opponents. It wasn’t Stoke last season, it was Chelsea. It’s different and we don’t need to think about that.”
Liverpool have never lost a League Cup semi-final at Anfield and should they prevail will face either Manchester City, or city rivals Everton in the final, clashes which Klopp is relishing.
“Until now when I’ve met an Evertonian nobody has knocked me, nobody has kicked me, nothing has happened. It has always been nice,” he explained
“It is one of the best rivalries in world football because in a lot of things we are together and in the sport we are against. That is cool, that is how it should be.
“Going to Wembley is the best thing you can do in football but who the opponent is at this moment is not the biggest issue. If it is Everton, we want to beat them. If it is Man City, we want to beat them. First of all we have to beat Stoke and then we can talk about the rest.”
- Goal