Klopp: Champions League qualification will give Liverpool massive confidence boost

Manager Jurgen Klopp believes confidence is still an issue for Liverpool after a decade of underachieving – but he is hoping that can all change after their qualification for the Champions League.

The Reds beat already-relegated Middlesbrough 3-0 on Sunday to guarantee their spot in the top four of the Premier League for the first time since the 2013-14 campaign, and earned a spot in the Champions League for only the second time in eight seasons.

With Klopp at the helm, the dynamic Liverpool squad looks a different beast, and Anfield regulars will expect the seat at Europe’s top table to become the norm in the coming years.

But the German insists the players need to believe they deserve to be there year-after-year from now on.

He said: “Obviously we are not confident enough in general, that’s how it is. Always when something doesn’t work it always feels like something slips through your fingers, so it’s like ‘Oh, again like this, again like this’.

“So I am really happy that we achieved a little bit of something we didn’t achieve in the past too often [a top-four finish].

“Not because I am vain and want to show we can do it, but because I am interested in the way and for development you need to feel the improvement, you need to feel the next step, that it’s right.

“I hope it has given us a little bit more confidence in general and we can work with this. That will be good.

“We will be really strong and we will really fight [to reach the group stages] because we want to be there and it’s all good. It’s a fantastic competition and I think in the last ten years Liverpool was not part of it too often.

“We should try everything to change this; we have to make steps and the step for us to be around the best teams in the world, because we are one of the best clubs.”