Lallana: Klopp wanted a response and Reds provided it
Adam Lallana was pleased to see Liverpool produce the perfect response as they got one over their cup final conquerors Manchester City just three days after disappointment at Wembley.
Jürgen Klopp's team were in irrepressible mood as they bounced back from Capital One Cup despair with a 3-0 victory at Anfield in the Barclays Premier League on Wednesday evening.
Lallana opened the scoring on the night with a fine left-footed effort from distance, carving out a deserved lead which was then added to by a dominant home team.
When asked if the Reds' performance was the ideal riposte after their weekend heartbreak, the No.20 told Liverpoolfc.com: "Obviously if you look at the result, it is, and the performance was probably just as good.
"Throughout the team I thought there were great performances. Flanno, coming in, I thought he was excellent, Kolo, Dejan coming back in after a while out and Clyney filling in at left-back - I thought they were outstanding.
"The manager said he wanted to see a response, he wanted it to be intense, and I thought it was a great atmosphere out there, the crowd responded.
"It's not nice to lose cup finals but throughout the team we'll learn from it and hopefully there'll be more finals in the near future."
Lallana was also glad to atone for his penalty miss in the Wembley shootout by putting in an impressive performance characterised by relentless pressing, which brought him a goal and an assist.
"It hurt at the weekend, no doubt about that," he added.
"The lads that missed penalties, including myself, might have felt a bit of guilt for missing the penalty.
"But the lads have been great, we're in it together, and I thought we contributed this evening together as a unit and put on a good performance for the fans.
"I thought it was important that we did that."
The former Southampton attacker ended by calling for more consistency from Liverpool during the run-in - though, of course, he is refusing to look further ahead than the next game.
"There were great performances all throughout the team tonight and I think we just need to continue that and be a bit more consistent," he explained.
"We've just got to take it a game at a time and almost ignore the table for the time being.
"We've got a couple of big Europa League games coming up, which are going to be fantastic against [Manchester] United, but [we] just [take it] a game at a time and we'll see where we are in the next few weeks."