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The first full year of Jurgen Klopp 's Liverpool reign has been packed with drama.

Two cup finals ended in heartbreak before a summer overhaul enabled the Reds to launch a thrilling challenge for the Premier League title.

Klopp's attacking brand of football has seen Liverpool plunder 86 league goals in 2016 – the club's highest tally in a calendar year since 1985.

The ECHO's James Pearce sat down with Klopp in the manager's office at Melwood to relive the glorious highs and the gut-wrenching lows.

With a memorable image selected for each month, Klopp gives his verdict on the progress that's been achieved in 2016.

In the first of three parts, the Reds boss looks back on January through to April.

JANUARY

January 23 2016 at Carrow Road... Norwich City 4-5 Liverpool in the Premier League

JK: Ah yes, January, Norwich.

JP: That was some game at Carrow Road. 3-1 down, 4-3 up and then you conceded in stoppage time. You go straight down the other end and Adam Lallana scores a 95th-minute winner. Did that epitomise the spirit you've instilled in the squad?

JK: I actually don't wish we have games like this a lot of times because it's quite nervy and intense. It was a very different end to the game than what happened to us at Bournemouth earlier this month!

In that moment, when we drove home from Norwich, I knew there would be a day when we would be on the other end of a result like that. We are a team that's involved in a lot of dramatic endings.

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It was a wonderful experience, that game at Norwich. It showed a lot about the boys and a lot about the spirit in the team we had after four months working together. That was a nice highlight.

JP: You were on the pitch after Lallana scored. Your glasses took a battering in the celebrations...

JK: They were absolutely broken! In the picture I have them in my hands.

It was Christian Benteke who did it. So don't kill my glasses or otherwise you will be sold!

FEBRUARY

February 28 2016 at Wembley... Liverpool 1-1 Manchester City in the Capital One Cup final (City win 3-1 on penalties)

JP: Your first major final as Liverpool manager. What are your memories of that day?

JK: I don't think we played that badly. After we went 1-0 down, I think there was only one team really attacking. We just had to be always careful with Man City's counter-attacks. We didn't give much away. We scored the goal and then usually you have the momentum on your side and then go on to decide the game but it didn't work out for us.

We'd had a few penalty shots before then and it had always worked out really well for us. Unfortunately, that day our penalties were not so good.

That's about being lucky or unlucky, whatever, there's nothing really to plan about penalties. You have to accept it.

I know nobody can remember any more but I have won some finals before. It's really nice but if you don't win, you have to carry on. That's how it is.

You can't forget it, you have to use it. We couldn't use it in the next final in Basel but we will use it in the coming finals, I'm sure.

JP: You turn your back when penalties are taken. Are you superstitious?

JK: Did I watch the penalty shoot-out at Wembley? Probably not. I don't look at penalties too often.

I would say that in general I'm not superstitious but when we shoot the penalties it probably says something completely different.

With Milly (James Milner), it's no problem. I don't need to watch, I just enjoy the noise after he has scored. All good.

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JP: Amid the crushing disappointment of losing a final, can you take positives out of a day like that?

JK: Of course you can. With winning and losing finals, there's a lot of lucky and unlucky situations in the moment. A penalty, no penalty.

JP: A thin line?

JK: Absolutely. It's only about doing it in that moment. You have to use it. You need to go confident in a final. You have been successful to take the right way to the final so of course you can use it.

But to lose a final is a disappointing moment. You can't ignore it.

It was a strange thing for me with the Capital One Cup. I asked the players and they said it was a major tournament. But around us all I'd heard was 'nah, it's only the Capital One Cup'.

To go to the final you have a really busy schedule at the start of the second half of the season so only crazy teams try to go to the final. Playing a two-legged semi-final disturbs everything.

This January for us is already busy and now we have two extra games in this competition so you create problems for yourself.

But obviously we are a team that likes playing football and likes winning games.

You win this cup, it's cool, but you don't have time to celebrate it really.

If you lose it, it's just the Capital One Cup and you have to carry on.

It's a strange situation but we were pretty new together when we played that final last February. We would have liked that silverware in our hands.

It was another not so nice experience but we've had a lot of very nice ones.

I can't wait until you show me the image you have for May! Oh my God...

MARCH

(Image: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

March 17 2016 at Old Trafford... Manchester United 1-1 Liverpool in the last 16 of the Europa League (Liverpool win 3-1 on aggregate)

JK: Ah, this is better. Manchester United! That goal was outstanding.

It was really like pushing a button to switch off the noise.

We played an outstanding game against Manchester United at home. Really good. It was 2-0 but we should have scored more. We were the better team, all that stuff.

Going there, was a real experience. Before you have it, you can't imagine how it is.

Unfortunately, I have to say, Old Trafford is not the worst place to play football. It was pretty loud too. I was like 'oh, okay'.

JP: That was a tough first half. Then Coutinho's goal on the stroke of half-time changed everything.

JK: Yeah, it did. On the way to the dressing room at half-time after Phil scored that goal, it was fantastic. The funny thing is that when you look back to that game, nobody felt that Man United would have a chance to come back in that second half. They needed to score three goals in that second half. Then they would have gone through 4-3.

That's not impossible but nobody believed it was possible. When you look back, you think about how the game was finished in that moment Phil scored. But you also think why?

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It was a fantastic goal. Unfortunately, you have to score a goal as good as that to find a way past De Gea.

When we lost at home to United in the Premier League last season it was Liverpool against De Gea. But Phil found a way past him, nice.

JP: Coutinho has had an amazing year, hasn't he?

JK: Yeah, really good. In 2016 he has made the next step for sure.

He has been very consistent. I think our style of play fits really well with him.

We had a few talks about it. Of course with Phil's skills, everyone wants to give him the ball and wait for something special to happen.

Then you think 'oh no, don't shoot again'. But if I could shoot like he could shoot then I would try it all the time.

I'd get up in the morning and just shoot the ****ing ball around in the garden or something. It's outstanding how good he is.

When we spoke about it, I told him that he could help us more and we could help him more when we do very simple passing to create better situations and have the opportunity to finish in different kind of ways. That's given us a real boost in terms of development.

It took a little bit of responsibility off his shoulders so he could play more freely of expectations and pressures. All that stuff. He's made a big, big step.

APRIL

April 14 2016 at Anfield... Liverpool 4-3 Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-final of the Europa League (Liverpool win 5-4 on aggregate)

JP: Was that the greatest night of the year?

JK: I spoke this morning with Hans-Joachim Watzke (CEO of Borussia Dortmund) on the phone. It was a Christmas call, wishing each other all the best, happy new year, all that stuff.

He said: “I'll have to take a plane to Liverpool, watch a game and sample that atmosphere again. But I really needed a few months to get over what happened at Anfield at April. It was the hardest night we've had for a long time.”

For us, it was historically good. The whole tie was special.

When they made the draw and we got Dortmund everyone said: “Unlucky.” The best team in the competition but we knew that over two legs anything was possible.

We had watched a lot of their games up to that point but only as a kind of supporter. You like it when they win and when their players do well.

But once the draw was made we watched their games more seriously.

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The more we watched them, the more we analysed them, we really thought: “Okay, they are beatable.”

We were really good away to Dortmund when we drew there.

Then at Anfield, even when we were 2-0 and 3-1 down, we had more chances than all the teams who had played against Dortmund before that year combined.

We knew how to play against them. The only problem was that we had conceded two goals from counter-attacks and another when we should have defended much better.

We knew that if we stayed cool we would create chances and that if we created chances we could still win the game. If you can score, you can change the result.

We actually felt more confident that you can imagine, even at half-time. I'm not sure about the players but I did and I gave them the message that it was not over.

I'm a really lucky guy. I had wonderful atmospheres at Mainz and at Dortmund but the last half an hour at Anfield that night was the best I have ever had.

When you watch it back, Liverpool as a club was not to stop in this moment. We will never forget that night for sure.

JP: Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel said he couldn't explain it. He said he felt that once it went to 3-3 everyone in the stadium believed that Liverpool would get a fourth. Does that show what can be achieved when players and fans are united as a powerful force?

JK: Absolutely. Maybe each supporter who goes to Anfield should watch that last half-hour and remind himself again: “Ah, that's what we can do.”

It wouldn't have been possible, no chance, without the crowd. That's for sure.

Sometimes people maybe think that as manager I have to say this. That I want to involve the crowd or something.

But I believe in it 100%. If the game happened again and you switched off the sound in the stadium, then no chance we win.

It's not just about the noise, it's more, it's about the vibe, everything. You could catch it. It was outstanding. I loved it.

Don't miss part two tomorrow as Klopp reflects on what went wrong in May's Europa League final in Basel through to the Reds' flying start to the new Premier League season in August