Klopp says he is not setting targets for Liverpool and won’t seek ‘perfection’ as a manager

Jurgen Klopp claims to be setting no targets for Liverpool in the 2020-21 and has no desire to achieve “perfection” as a coach.

The Reds have delivered remarkable levels of consistency across the last two seasons, allowing them to claim Champions League and Premier League crowns.

UEFA Super Cup and FIFA World Club Cup triumphs have also been achieved, with the intention on Merseyside being to deliver more major honours in the years to come.

Klopp is the man charged with the task of overseeing trophy quests, however the sporting scene has shifted dramatically during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, making short and long-term planning difficult.

With that in mind, and with anything still possible in 2020-21, Klopp insists no plans are being set in stone at Anfield.

“This is not a season, this is not a time in life when you should limit yourself, in a positive and a negative way, with targets. It's just we all have to get through this situation. That's how it is,” Klopp told UEFA’s official website.

“For the players, it's incredibly intense what we are doing. We're all happy and it's without any alternative that we play. It's great – love it, fantastic – but it's all on the backs of the players.

“They have to deliver. You watch the game and if they don't play well, you still think: ‘That's not really good!’ You don't think about what they go through in the week, because we all have normal lives, obviously, left and right of the games we play.

“That's pretty much the same for all of us, where you cannot see friends, you cannot see your family, and all these things. Recovery is not only sleep, it's not only treatment.

"It's really giving yourself a bit of freedom to think about things you want to think about and not what you have to think about. In the world out there at the moment, the biggest problem is that we don't have this time often enough and it keeps us quite tense. That doesn't help if then you have a game to play every three days at 110%, in the best way.”

Klopp has always demanded, and normally delivered, the very best from those around him. The 53-year-old is adamant, though, that is no perfectionist.

He added: “As a human, as a person, probably the first thing I realised that helped me a lot in life is that I don't have to go for perfection because it's not possible. I didn't even try; I just always tried to make the best of the things I had, and it never went anywhere close to perfection, to be honest.

"With football, it's pretty much the same. So, we are always trying to be as good as possible, but perfection, I never saw it, and I watch a lot of football.

“As long as you are not perfect, you have space to improve, which is nice and gives you the drive to get through all the different challenges you face during a football season, a football career, or life. So, I'm not a specialist in perfection, obviously – probably the opposite – but I still try to push my boys to get there as close as possible.

“There is so much space for improvement. That's what we're working on, but while you try to improve, you should never forget what is good already and use that, and that's what we do as well.

"So, it's not an obvious thing to do every morning: ‘We have to get better, we have to get better’. No, we know some things are that good that it would sometimes be enough just to bring them consistently on the pitch.”