What a difference a year makes for Liverpool.
At this time last season, the Reds had long clinched the Premier League title — their first of the modern era and 19th English top-flight title. This season has been far more challenging for Jurgen Klopp's men, and with just two matches remaining they don't even know if they'll qualify for the next edition of the Champions League.
Liverpool heads to Burnley on Wednesday fifth on the table, three points behind Leicester City for England's final Champions League berth. A historic stoppage-time goal by 'keeper Alisson Becker over the weekend kept Liverpool's Champions League hopes alive, and now the club must maximize its results against the Clarets and Crystal Palace (on Sunday) just to have a chance.
Even with the soccer world still talking about Alisson's stunning header and its implications for Liverpool's continental future, Klopp says he wants his players to focus on the moment rather than look ahead to what could be.
"It kept us in the race, that's the most important thing," Klopp said of Alisson's game-winner at West Brom. "We know exactly nothing really happened apart from we are still in the race. But we are not even close to thinking we would be already halfway through because we know high the hurdles are in front of us."
Given how much of Liverpool's fate lies in Leicester's hands, Klopp says it makes no sense for his team to look at anything but the Burnley game first, then Crystal Palace on Matchday 38.
And the manager definitely does not have time for any suggestions that momentum may be on Liverpool's side thanks to the goalkeeper's weekend heroics.
"For us it's very, very, very important – you saw that in the faces of the players when Ali scored the goal," Klopp said of what a top-four finish means to his side. "We can speak about what it means if we have to speak about it on Sunday after the game, but now we play Burnley.
"And I really don't like these talks like we would have made it already before we play Burnley and Crystal Palace. That would be, in my mind at least, disrespectful and I don't want to think about what it means.
"In the moment it would mean, for us, if we have on Sunday still a final for us, then we had a positive result at Turf Moor. That's all what it is and depends on other results.
"If we don't win on Wednesday then we don't have a final on Sunday."
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