Jürgen Klopp has told Liverpool’s players they will be judged on a season-by-season basis but admitted he is also under pressure to develop a winning style this season.

Liverpool host Arsenal on Wednesday 12 points behind the Premier League leaders and with their new loan signing Steven Caulker in line to play in central defence should Mamadou Sakho fail to recover from a knee injury.

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Klopp has said repeatedly that Liverpool do not require an overhaul of their playing staff in the January transfer window, moving for Caulker only in response to his recent injury crisis. But he admits players have until the end of the season to prove they should feature in his long-term plans.

“There is pressure on all of us but it’s not the time or the moment to think of it,” the Liverpool manager said. “I feel pressure before each game and between them, of course, but only to develop and improve as quickly as possible. I have to accept the situation. I don’t know which is our best game. I think: ‘Let’s recover for three days, on the fourth and fifth days train, sixth play again and take the next step.’ But that’s a dream world. You have to react in a normal one. For the players it’s the same.

“I always say with players that I don’t sign contracts but it’s a contract for one year – a very good season the player can leave, a very bad one and the club will let the player leave. Anything can happen. In this year we are only focused on trying everything to make a season that when we are old and grey we can look back and say it was really worth it, that we found new friends, had success, all those things. It’s an agreement. You have to try things. Pressure is there but the art is only to feel the pressure to win games.

“Now we have a new chance against Arsenal, a really good team, but we have weapons to be a real opponent in this game. What more could you want? One of [the] best teams in world, one of [the] best in the Premier League for sure and we can battle them, we can beat them. That’s what we want, we don’t think about the rest of the season, only this.”

Simon Mignolet has agreed in principle a new contract with Liverpool that will tie him to the club until 2021. Talks on the five-year deal began before Christmas with Klopp keen to retain the goalkeeper who has attracted criticism for several errors yet kept more Premier League clean sheets in 2015 than any of his rivals.

Mignolet is expected to put pen to paper on the new contract soon.