Jurgen Klopp has defended the way he sets out his Liverpool team and thinks the “intensity” of the Premier League is the reason clubs have found it difficult in the Champions League.

English sides have struggled to make the semi-finals let alone the final of the Champions League in recent seasons and Klopp now fully understands why it is hard for the big clubs.

“The way the league’s perceived in Germany, and I wasn’t any different, is that they don’t get anything done in Europe,” Klopp said in an interview with German publication Kicker. “But that’s not because the players all of a sudden can’t play or the coaches got worse.

“The real reason is: The competition is extremely wearing. I’ve not had one single easy match here, and have rarely seen out. Otto Rehhagel once said one of the greatest-ever things: Who always hopes for an easy match, will never get one. Who always expects a difficult match, will sometimes have one. It’s like that.

“A war of attrition, competition, competition, competition with a long cup and more games in the league. It’s very difficult to bring that in tune with the challenges in Europe given today’s intensity.

“Here, the results are paramount and every team will do anything, and do not hold back in their methods. This means a fight for everything week in, week out. You need to get yourself into it.”

Liverpool are still in contention for a top-four finish in the Premier League with victory over Middlesbrough on Sunday guaranteeing a place in the Champions League for next season.

However, there has been some criticism of Klopp’s style of play against sides that like to sit deep and soak up the pressure.

“I am not the football Pope,” the former Borussia Dortmund boss added. “It’s a doctrine. The result stands above everything else.

“We got used to how most opponents play against us. That’s not a problem. But this doesn’t mean that because of it we’ve changed our style that much. We still believe it’s right what we do. It worked out often enough.

“We can’t change this. [It] also means an image which was already there in Germany [that Klopp does not have a Plan B] is transported to England. It just doesn’t affect us a bit because we have a thousand plans. We just need to live with it.

“Let’s look at the goals. We scored 75 and conceded 42. Alongside Manchester City we’ve scored the second-most goals, but sadly conceded a lot.

“You can add another stat: We are rarely outplayed before goals. As a classic possession-based team, we concede goals after classic counters when losing the ball or from set pieces or, what is even worse, from second balls after set pieces.

“We are working on it. If it were that easy, it would not happen by now.”