Jurgen Klopp has hit out at critics of his Liverpool team's defensive performances this season, insisting that his back line has performed far better than the numbers have shown.
Klopp's side have conceded more oftenthan any other side around them in the title race - going into this weekend's action having let in more than twice as many goals as Tottenham - but Klopp insisted over the weekend that he 'doesn't care' what people say about his side.
Klopp hits out at common perception that Liverpool have defensive issues. https://t.co/UcJqbO6WiM via @MailSport
Quoted byMailOnline Sport, the German said: "I don't care about what people say about it because when you only look at the numbers and you see 14 goals conceded then that is obviously too much for a team like this.
"But look how we conceded those goals. It was a thing we spoke about with set-pieces because three goals we conceded are from set-pieces “ well, in my analysis afterwards they were offside but nobody spoke about it, just that we have a problem with set-pieces.
"We always need to be cool with it, we have to work, improve, we know this. But we are able to defend. We are not weak in defending. If somebody wants to say that then do it, but I know we aren't.
"Against Southampton, look how we defended, how Dejan (Lovren) and Joel (Matip) defended the counter-attacks. I didn't see much better."
The Reds boss also admitted that his side may have to cope with more teams playing to frustrate them in the not-too distant future, as Southampton did on Saturday and Manchester United did a few weeks previous.
"A lot of teams play against us like this," he said. "We cannot change what other teams do. We are hard to stop. We have to make sure we stay in the game and not let them attack, don't let them counter-attack."
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