Klopp haunted by Sevilla defeat

Liverpool manager admits he is still not over his side's Europa League final defeat.

The Reds dominated the first half of the final against Sevilla and deserved to take the lead through Daniel Sturridge's brilliant opener, but the Spanish side equalised less than a minute into the second half before Coke netted twice to end Liverpool's hopes of a European title.

The defeat cam just over two months after Manchester City beat Liverpool on penalties in the Capital One Cup final and Klopp admits he is still haunted by the defeat to Sevilla.

""Of course I've had a lot of thoughts about this. It was long ago but it still feels bad," Klopp said.

"After the game I was not in the mood to think too much about the first half but later I did and it was obvious that we'd played a good game in the first half and we could have been in a clearer lead.

"We could have had a penalty for handball, all this stuff that you see afterwards. It's not interesting because it's over but as a human being it's quite difficult to accept all this stuff.

"Of course you have moments when you still suffer a little bit."

He added: "In the second half, 18 seconds in was too soon. I've thought a lot about half-time but there wasn't anything too special that I could highlight - that we were not too sure about the game or something like this.

"We knew it was only half-time and there was still a lot of work to be done but then what happened, happened."

Having finished eighth in the Premier League, Liverpool needed to win the Europa League to secure European football this season.

Despite two months passing since the final, Klopp will speak to his players about the experience and is hoping the defeat will spur them on as they gear up for the new season.

“You have to take the right thoughts from it. That’s what we’ll try to do but that’s not easy because you can’t bring all of this up in the first meeting and say ‘Look, I hope you had a wonderful holiday, but I want to tell you the second half in Basel was not so good.’ That wouldn’t make sense," Klopp is quoted as saying in the Daily Mail.

“It’s an experience, one that you don’t need, but we will get on with it. We had no luck in the game, Sevilla had a few moments in the first half when they needed a bit of luck and they had it, but it’s over and it doesn’t feel as bad now as it did at the time.”