Klopp has need for greed from shot-shy Liverpool

(Reuters) – Liverpool’s players must show more desire if they are to get their faltering season back on track, manager Juergen Klopp has said.

With his team having netted just 22 goals in 20 Premier League games this season, Klopp has called for an all-round improvement to set matters right.

Daniel Sturridge, Divock Origi and Danny Ings are all injured, leaving the German with Christian Benteke as his only orthodox striking option ahead of Tuesday’s League Cup semi-final first leg against Stoke City.

The Belgian, Liverpool’s leading scorer, has six league goals this season. To put that in perspective, the league’s joint top scorers, Romelu Lukaku and Jamie Vardy, have 15 apiece.

Klopp suggested that his team was having problems in terms of carving out opportunities as well as finishing them off.

“The mother of all goals is the opportunities, the chances, so we have to have them and then you have to use them,” the German told reporters.

“We need to be more concentrated, be more greedy, be more disciplined, be more everything. We are often in situations where we can score goals and we don’t use them.

“You need confidence, you need to run. We made goals in several games, six against Southampton and things like this, so we know where the goal is, that is the good thing.

“But we have things to work on. We have big problems with injuries with the strikers so we have to work, it’s not dreamland. We know the numbers and it’s not good but we can do better.”

(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by John O’Brien)