Reaction'I always try to be ready' - Fabinho on five goals in seven games
Fabinho benefited from trying to be 'alive inside the box' as he scored the winner in Liverpool's 1-0 victory at Burnley on Sunday.
Extended highlights: Burnley 0-1 Liverpool
The midfielder pounced upon Sadio Mane’s flick-on from a corner to fire into the Clarets net at the second attempt 40 minutes into the Premier League contest.
It was his fifth strike in his last seven appearances and secured three more points for Jürgen Klopp’s side in their pursuit of Manchester City.
“Yeah, that’s really impressive!” Fabinho told Premier League Productions of his recent prolific spell.
“I try to always help the team. Now, when you score goals, you are always confident that the ball will come to you. So I always try to be ready, I try to follow every ball, to go second post or first post, to change a little bit on the set-pieces.
“And I was happy because after Sadio’s deflection the ball came to me and I was alive inside the box. So, yes, one more!”
It was a gritty encounter at Turf Moor amid challenging weather conditions and the Reds had to dig in to overcome an opponent battling for every point in their own objective to stay in the division.
Alisson Becker had to produce several saves, especially before the visitors’ breakthrough, and Fabinho felt his team did enough to merit their success overall.
“It’s always hard to play here, it’s a tough place to come,” said Fabinho. “We know everything about them: second balls, intensity, physically strong as well. But we were ready for this.
“Sometimes we forgot to play football a little bit because we wanted to fight them with the second balls and everything, but when we put the ball on the ground we created chances.
“We scored our goal with the set-piece but after in the second half we had a little bit more space and we created more. We didn’t score the second goal but defensively, the team was very good today.
“So, a nice three points.”
The win in Lancashire brought Liverpool’s deficit to City back down to nine points after the leaders had won 4-0 at Norwich City on Saturday.
Klopp’s men also hold a game in hand but, with commitments across four competitions in a packed fixture schedule, will simply concentrate on the next task at hand.
Fabinho added: “We have to think game after game. Now we play every three days; we play other competitions as well, we play Champions League. Everyone has to be ready.
“Now, we don’t have any injured players so this is good for us, for the team. Yes, we have to think about game after game, we have to try to win every game and if before the game against them we have a chance to be next to them, let’s see.”