He was the best player against Manchester United and yet Klopp's surprising decision with this player

Liverpool drew at home to Manchester United on Sunday 17 December in the 17th round of the 2023-2024 Premier League, losing their place at the top of the table and slipping back to second place in the standings. Despite dominating much of the game, Jürgen Klopp's side were unable to convert the good chances they created, especially in the first half. They also dropped points at Anfield Road for the first time in the league.

"I saw a lot of good things today, the only thing I didn't like was the result. We should have scored at least one goal. You could say the decisive part, the goal-scoring part, obviously wasn't there today. Maybe we were a bit unlucky," said the German DT. The experienced coach, likewise, explained in the post-match press conference what he was looking for with the changes he made in the second half, when he took off Colombian Luis Diaz in the 78th minute for Curtis Jones.

"We had to go ahead and try practically everything. We changed the system, we brought in new players and everything could have worked out if we had made a better decision. We wanted to change the system and have Joey higher up, put him right on the wing, the same for Kosti," he said initially. Then he said: "So you need players in these half spaces and then it was Cody on the right, Lucho on the left and Mo in the centre. Then we switched again with Harvey. That's the thing, we just played against a team that man-marked, so every little adjustment could have made a big difference, if we had used it better."

The replacement of Luis Diaz 

With 38 points and after dropping their first points of the season at their temple, Liverpool are now second in the Premier League standings, while Arsenal, who beat Brighton 2-0 at home, move to the top on 39 points. Third on 38 points are Aston Villa, who beat Brentford 2-1 on Sunday. Klopp finally insisted at the press conference that the run of games in December is the most difficult part of the season, as there is not much time to recover and prepare for the games.