Jurgen Klopp: It's too early to talk about consistency

 Jurgen Klopp thinks it is too early to talk about consistency despite his side winning their last three matches and seemingly turning a corner.

Victories against Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and West Ham have left the Reds just seven points behind Manchester United, who occupy the final Champions League qualification spot. 

However, the German insists that performances rather than results will be the benchmark for the remainder of the season. 

"This season if we don't do something really special will be remembered for the 7-0 against United, I hope when people speak about it in a few years, they will look back and that they can say something really nice on top of that. 

'After that we qualified for whatever', that would be nice, if not we had to take that as well. 

We did what we did, and for a long period of time it was really good, and even this year we had some good moments, what we lack this year is consistency and that is what we are working on.

It is too early to speak about consistency, winning three games is not consistent, it is good, but can only be the start of something. 

Consistency is showing performances, even more than results, I know for the outside world it is the result, but for us it must be the performance, because that is what we work with.

I am happy with that at the moment because in all the games, as different as they were, I saw a lot of things we wanted to see. 

Really pleasing for the coach inside that these things are still possible, every opponent requires different things. 

We want to focus on us but we cannot ignore the quality of the opponent, we have to be ready for that as well, there is always something to improve, that is what we try to do as well. 

We have to stay super focused, be super aggressive, angry, greedy, and show that the most important price is the three points. I hope we can show that Sunday."

• European ambitions

When asked whether he would settle for a spot in the Europa League after a testing season, Klopp insisted that his side cannot be picky and must take what they get and use it to bounce back.

"We take what we get. That is absolutely fine. For what we qualify, is not for me so interesting. I want to create a basis that we qualify for the best possible scenario. So squeeze everything out. 

I want to play the best possible football, if we get nothing for that at the end of the season then we created that situation earlier in this year. 

This part of the season, we have to really focus on the game coming up, that is Tottenham, try to win it, try to play in a convincing way, try to be uncomfortable to play against, all these kind of things. 

Whatever happens until the end of the season, these last seven/eight/nine/ten weeks will be very important for the next season."

• Spurs' shaky season

Asked about the visitors to Anfield on Sunday, the German insisted that he expects a very good team to show up and give his side a real challenge, despite the difficulties they have had this season.

"Obviously a season where a lot of things were difficult for a lot of teams, we had our problems, Chelsea has their problems, Tottenham has their problems.

It is not cool for us, but it opens the door for other teams, Champions League spots are there to grasp for other teams. 

We saw last night the team they have is still absolutely exceptional, what they could do, why it didn't work out, I have no idea.

I will be prepared for the best possible Tottenham side, they were for some years, by some distance, the best counter-attacking team in Europe. 

There were moments when we lost the ball, they only had to find Harry Kane then the next moment Son was in a one-on-one situation with the goalie.

I expect them to be really good, in the second-half they showed what everyone in the stadium wanted to see and could have won the game, that is the team we will prepare for."

• Team selections

The Reds have made just once change in their last four games, with Joel Matip replacing Ibrahima Konate in the 2-1 victory over West Ham, and Klopp revealed two reasons why he has not made alterations to his side in recent weeks.

"We didn't change not because we won the game before, we didn't change because we set the team up slightly differently. 

We want to give the boys the chance to find some rhythm, to get used to different things. That is reason number one. 

Number two is, I said the ticket into this team will always be the readiness to defend and to counter-press and I liked a lot of what I saw. 

You can buy the ticket again if you want. It created a situation in training where the boys who did not start showed up properly, so we could have changed, they really knock on the door, which is good. 

We have time to train so everybody can show, in a normal week with three games you have recovery where only the guys who didn't play the day  before, the next day second day recovery for the guys who played, the other boys do a little more, then you only have one training day in a long week. 

That is not a session that should be that intense. 

I liked big parts of the games, not all of it of course, Nottingham, around  set-pieces, that was not cool." 

He also gave a brief injury update. 

"Ibou will be back, I guess Naby will train today, Ox is not in training. We have a couple of players out everyone knows about them. 

Diogo got a bad knock in his back, but should be alright, we will see how that develops. 

Apart from that we should be okay."

• Jones thriving after injury nightmare

One player that has thrived in the new system and as a result of a lack of changes to the starting eleven is Curtis Jones, and the German revealed how proud he is of the youngster after a challenging campaign. 

"Five games in a row, absolutely great, it didn't look like this would be possible, freakish injury, we had to be super careful with him. 

Even when he was back in training, he was not allowed to train and have a normal training week. 

When Curtis came back to the team, we were still involved in European football, which means we don't train properly. That makes it really difficult for players who come back to get up to speed, it was super difficult to organise. 

When he could train again, it was pretty quickly clear that the sessions he had around our sessions from a physical point of view, really good, he looked really pretty quick. 

With the boys from the academy, people fancy big transfers, I am really happy for Curtis, he is only in the squad because he has real quality. 

He is good on the ball, safe on the ball, which is super helpful, defence, extremely good, he deserves that spell, he has had a tough spell to go through. 

He got through this and is now in a good space."