Jurgen Klopp feels Champions League tie is over after Liverpool’s 5-2 defeat to Real Madrid

Liverpool were stunned by Real Madrid at Anfield on Tuesday night. Head coach Jurgen Klopp feels that his side’s Champions League dreams are now over after Los Blancos came from two goals down to score five in the first leg of their last-16 tie.

Liverpool ran into an early with Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah netting inside the first quarter of an hour.

Madrid responded before the break with a Vinícius Júnior brace. His compatriot Eder Militao’s headed home early in the second half before Karim Benzema scored a brace to seal a historic 5-2 victory over the Premier League club.

Klopp thinks tie is over

Put to Klopp that Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti said he could not say the tie was over, the German said: “I think Carlo thinks the tie is over – and I think it as well at the moment.

“But in three weeks – that is how it is in these moments – the closer you get to the game, the bigger our chances become and the less likely that the tie is over.

“But tonight with a 5-2 when you see the game, they are pretty good in counter-attacking… we have to score there three goals and take some risks. That could be a bit tricky.

“But it’s really not in my mind so we go there, I can say that now already, and try and win the game.

“If that’s possible or not right now I don’t know but that’s what we will try and from there we will see.”

Return leg at Bernabéu

The second leg between the sides takes place at the Santiago Bernabéu on March 15 and Klopp wants his players to take the positives.

“I can see that people think that, understandable, but that is actually not allowed,” Klopp said post-match.

“I told the boys directly after the game so this is a different thing that happened today. One result that was opposite of what we wanted.

“We made mistakes around the goal, yes, as well and I said a couple of times a defeat is a defeat if you don’t learn from it.

“If you don’t learn tonight that the start of the game was outstanding and the way we played was us in a nutshell, us like we want to be, and that’s what we have to keep doing. If we now allow this one game to be influential, we are really silly.

“We have a few days where we’ll make sure that we take the right things out of this game.

“Yes, we have to improve. Third goal, massively. First goal massively.

“But we have to take the good things as well. That would be horrible if we don’t do that.

“It’s a different game obviously (on Saturday at Crystal Palace) but the intensity, the effort we showed, the football we played, pretty much everything was like we want to see ourselves.

“So, we have to make sure that we keep that. I know 5-2 could be damaging but I hope I can make sure that that is not happening.”