ReactionJürgen Klopp press conference: 'We played a really good game, our best at Fulham'
Jürgen Klopp was pleased by a ‘really good football game’ from his side as Liverpool clinched a 3-1 victory away at Fulham on Sunday.
The Reds moved back level on points with Premier League leaders Arsenal with the win, which came courtesy of second-half strikes by Ryan Gravenberch and Diogo Jota.
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s sumptuous free-kick just after the half-hour had been cancelled out by Timothy Castagne’s finish on the stroke of half-time.
Post-match, Klopp described the display as the best his team has produced at Craven Cottage during his tenure. Read the manager’s press conference below...
On it being a strong performance, especially in the second half…
I liked big parts of the first half already but you are right, the second half was a complete performance, if you want. The start in the game was good. For us, you cannot really explain that, but for us Fulham is a tough place to go. I can’t even remember if we won here before, to be honest, we always struggle here a little bit. If we won, I’m pretty sure it was rather lucky than convincing, maybe I see that wrong. From my point of view, that was the best performance we had so far against Fulham away.
We won the last game already. Nobody felt that really but we won against Atalanta. It didn’t help but it was still a win. And I thought there’s a good chance we’d make the next step today and we tried that and the boys did that, and it was really good. We just played a really good football game, created much more chances than we used – that’s normal, by the way – but could have scored more often. We had one or two tricky situations to sort I think, self-created pretty much when we lost the ball in an unnecessary moment. I’m really happy with the performance and hopefully nobody got hurt, not that I heard anything, but that would be great. Then we’ll see. We have to recover because then we play on Wednesday again.
On the professionalism his team has showed in response to recent setbacks…
Look, I don’t question these kind of things. We were that before. Obviously we didn’t gain an awful lot of points in that period but I think it was still one or two. OK, we should have won games, we didn’t. That’s not great. But created a lot and we are in the situation we are because of the character of these boys. Nobody expected us to be here and here we are. That’s because of the boys.
It’s the run-in, obvious, there’s no interruption anymore. There’s no [European] football anymore, at least not for us. Actually for no English team besides Aston Villa. So we all can concentrate on that and that’s what we probably will all do. I’m really happy with today. We made these changes because we were 100 per cent convinced we had to. It was not a gamble or whatever. We play on Wednesday and then we play on Saturday, already in London again, which is crazy enough but that’s how it is. So we need to make these changes before the players give me the obvious sign, ‘Sorry, I’m done.’ Really happy with that.
On Alexander-Arnold’s ability from set-pieces…
I think Harvey Elliott has actually 10 per cent, 15 per cent of the goal – because we analysed Fulham and saw that the wall is jumping and told Harvey, ‘Try to go under it.’ They obviously were not really jumping, only a little bit, so Harvey could not go through and the crowd was laughing. If I watch it back, I’m pretty sure the wall [then] didn’t jump as high as maybe they usually do. Great free-kick, he has that from time to time. Obviously wonderful goals. Bernd Leno asked me after the game, ‘What kind of goals do you always score against us?’ He probably means against him. That’s true, we had a few crazy ones. But we needed it. It was a great goal, the other goals were as good. For a long period of time Trent was exceptional, super-helpful to have him back. Yeah, top.
On whether he enjoys title races or prefers to ‘kill the league like four years ago’...
We won it once where we ‘killed’ the league, which I loved. It was just a bit different because there were no supporters in the stadium, so I would have loved to have had that slightly different. In all the other title races we lost in the end, [but] we kept it quite exciting. Maybe if we can keep it as exciting then in the end fortune is maybe then on our side. We don’t know. We have to try to win as many games as somehow possible, to win as many points as somehow possible. It is an intense season for all of us; everybody needs luck in moments, each of the three teams need that. So, it will be an interesting race and so I am happy that we are in and that part I enjoy.
On the importance of Alexander-Arnold’s return to the line-up...
It’s super-important. Super-important. But, for example, one of the shooting stars of this season is Conor Bradley, who played the position and he played in a few games football where we all thought, ‘Oh, wow... what was that?!’ But nobody is like Trent. Nobody is like Trent. The way we play with him can be different, so yes, it is super-helpful and I am really happy about that. How I said, the squad situation in the moment – and hopefully it stays like that – is as good as it has been in this season because if you saw our bench today, that was real quality and experience and stuff like this. I love all the kids who’ve played for us – and Jarell [Quansah] did today again an incredible job – and we wouldn’t be where we are without them, but it’s cool to have for once all the big guns as well around. Now we have to stay greedy, staying really on it. Let’s see what we can do.
On Jota’s availability and whether he is the ‘best finisher’ at the club...
The best finisher in this club is obviously Mo Salah with some distance. It is just super-cool to have Diogo back, he can play all three positions up front. It is as important that Cody Gakpo is back. He wasn’t injured, but he was a little bit struggling. He is now fully back since three or four games. He is physically there, is extremely strong, keeps the ball and stuff like this, so that’s really helpful as well.
Yes, to have them all back and mix it up [is important] – to bring on Darwin [Nunez] and Mo today is a crazy situation. It didn’t work out a little bit because of offsides, but it looked really dangerous, so now let’s see how we start the next game. It is really cool to have Diogo back, not only because of the goal but as well because of the performance. It looked really good. Lucho [Diaz] played an incredible game on the right wing; he was, in the first half, nearly not to stop. It all helped. Wataru Endo, little bit a dip and now second half, wow – what a game. Very helpful, all of that.