‘It will not happen’ – Jurgen Klopp makes Europa League admission following Liverpool’s defeat of LASK | OneFootball

Liverpool may have opened their Europa League campaign with a 3-1 defeat of Austrian outfit LASK but Jurgen Klopp has insisted the Reds will not be able to ‘fly through’ the competition.

After last season’s dismal campaign saw the Anfield outfit miss out on the Champions League for just the second time since the German’s arrival at Anfield in 2015 Liverpool are firm favourites to win Europe’s second competition.

The Europa League remains the one major trophy Klopp is yet to win at Anfield and the former Borussia Dortmund boss is aware that his side are not in for an easy ride.

“Oh yeah. How I said, I know how the world is and I know that people expect us to fly through this competition,” Klopp told Liverpoolfc.com (as quoted by 90min). “It will not happen. It will not happen in the group stage, it will not happen in the knockout stage.

“We have to dig in, which we did. It was a massive learning curve tonight, the opponent suffered much less from the pitch than we did. We had to get used to it. So we can learn so much.”

READ MORE: (Video) Klopp bemoans Liverpool’s inability to utilise ‘smart player’ against LASK

In regards to tonight’s clash at the Raiffeisen Arena we controlled the game from start to finish but fell behind to a simply stunning strike from Florian Flecker.

Goals from Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz had us ahead in the second half before a cheeky Mo Salah finish sealed all three points late on.

On paper we’re the strongest team in the competition but that means nothing.

There are some quality sides that we can face in the knockout stages but we need to first ensure we make it there by remaining professional and taking each game as they come.

Klopp will ensure his players don’t approach games thinking they’re already won so let’s hope we can make it all the way to Dublin in May and win the one trophy that currently eludes the Normal One’s trophy cabinet.

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