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Peter Krawietz Jurgen Klopp Pep GuardiolaGetty/Goal

Liverpool's hopes of winning Premier League title 'insanely ambitious', says Klopp's right-hand man

Liverpool assistant coach Peter Krawietz has insisted that the spending power of rival Premier League teams means that the Reds' hopes of winning the title remain "insanely ambitious".

The Merseysiders amassed an incredible total of 97 points in the 2018-19 campaign but still came up short, with City's 4-1 win over Brighton on the final day ensuring they were crowned champions for a second successive season.

Jurgen Klopp's side have the chance to end the season with a trophy on Saturday as they face Tottenham in the Champions League final, and while overcoming City domestically is a tall order, Krawietz is adamant that they will keep trying.

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He told Goal and SPOX: "Much more important [to Liverpool and the coaching staff] is always the entire work," he said. "We do not just focus on the championship, we want to initiate long-term development and improvement.  

"Against this background, the championship is undoubtedly a goal and our maximum desire. We know, however, that Liverpool will probably not be the financially strongest force in England in the next few seasons.  

"Therefore, this remains an insanely ambitious goal. We will keep trying. However, the fact that squad quality and depth are a major factor in this cannot be ignored." 

The Reds assistant boss also looked back at the 2018 Champions League final, a game that Real Madrid won 3-1, but not before Mohamed Salah was controversially injured by a strong challenge from Sergio Ramos.

On the force of the tackle that saw Salah exit the final after 31 minutes and put his hopes of playing at the World Cup in serious doubt, Krawietz added: "Put it this way, it did not surprise me that this player against our player, in a duel, tries to act with all the means he can.

"Whether he wanted to [hurt Salah] or not, he has done his team a great favour."

Mohamed Salah Liverpool 2018-19Getty Images

Liverpool's return to this season's version of the Champions League final was not without its troubles, with the club having to storm back against Spanish giants Barcelona in the semi-finals after a 3-0 first-leg loss in Spain.  

Following the match in Barcelona, Klopp said it was one of his side's best performances of the year, and Krawietz says that the Reds proved to themselves in the first leg that they could play a style that would unsettled the Spanish champions.  

"We played a really great game there and put Barcelona in a game situation that they neither expected nor are used to," he said. 

"As an away team, we dominated the ball possession and pressed them so hard that they had to resort to completely different means than usual in home games. It was almost inexplicable that we did not score with our good chances.  

"With this feeling, we then went to the return leg. We always knew we could play a style that Barca does not like again. And we always knew that it can be a relatively fun evening when we combine our pressure with successful finishes in front of goal." 

Liverpool famously won the second leg 4-0, knocking Barcelona out of the Champions League and booking a place in the final for the second year running.  

The winning strike that night came from Divock Origi, but was set-up by the quick thinking of Trent Alexander-Arnold , who picked out his Belgian team-mate from a corner before Barcelona players were in position to respond.  

Xherdan Shaqiri Trent Alexander-Arnold Liverpool Barcelona Champions League 2019Paul ELLIS

"We rehearsed that for weeks!" a smiling Krawietz said of the decisive fourth goal.

"No, that was actually due to Trent's responsiveness. The fact is that we repeatedly address fast-paced set pieces, we consider different scenarios around a corner or free-kick and continuously practice them. 

"But we encourage and demand variability from our players in every case. In this case, long-term training and constant repetitions resulted in a wonderfully spontaneous action." 

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