Press conferenceJürgen Klopp on 'massive' win at Tottenham, post-match celebrations, Salah and more
Jürgen Klopp praised Liverpool's performance after his team claimed a 'massive' 2-1 away win over Tottenham Hotspur.
Extended highlights: Tottenham 1-2 Liverpool
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Mohamed Salah scored twice to hand the Reds a deserved two-goal lead at half-time, before Harry Kane pulled one back for Spurs with 20 minutes left to play.
Klopp’s team then withstood late pressure from the hosts to pick up a crucial victory – their first on the road in the Premier League this season.
Read a transcript of the manager’s post-match press conference below.
On his celebrations after the final whistle and whether they showed how significant a result it was for Liverpool...
Yeah. It was not my plan actually, I didn’t want to do it but I got carried away and I thought the people deserved a little bit [after] tough times, they had now to travel a lot in the Premier League until they saw the first three points. So yeah, I got a bit carried away but it was big, absolutely big. Before that final whistle I would not have been able to do that because I was really knackered, it was tough, a really tough game for everybody. Brilliant first half, a really, really good first half. Good football, controlled, top goals, world-class goals, and then we all know, Tottenham is coming back.
[They] take a lot of risk, become in these moments pretty direct, switched the side, cross the ball early and that makes life then really difficult because you cannot defend these situations all clear. There are a lot of second-ball fights. We had our counter-attacking moments, we were not precise enough in these moments, it would have been massive. There was a couple of moments when it was counter, counter, counter pretty much. If you can score there the third it obviously changes the whole game but we couldn’t. Then Tottenham scores their goal, which was really well played, and we had to keep fighting. We did that and I liked that and people who follow us a little bit longer know in our best spells, if you want to win an away game this is completely the normal way to do it and I am really happy about it tonight.
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On whether the performance in the first half or second half pleased him most…
Both, why should I [choose]? Both is important. If we have a normal game in the first half and it’s 0-0 Tottenham would have then thrown everything up front anyway in the second half, so that would have made it as difficult. No, you have to use your chances and that’s what we did in the first half – not all but two and then you have to fight and that’s what the boys did.
On Ibrahima Konate and whether he was delighted with his performance in his first Premier League start of the season…
Absolutely, absolutely. Ibou first half already he was outstanding. A top game, absolutely. Of course we are happy to have him, but we didn’t have him a lot, that’s how it is. This is now really intense for him, he had now two starts in a row. I hope he is fine and we can go from here.
On Salah’s form...
Even with a ‘slow start’, he was involved in most chances in Europe, in football, but we didn’t take them or he didn’t take them. That can happen for a striker, it’s a completely normal phase, but how everybody knows, he will in the end when you look back on his career in four, five or six years, everybody will remember one of the best strikers you ever saw because the numbers will be absolutely insane. Tonight, what pleased me the most, he scored the two goals and then he played like a real, real team player. I am not surprised by it, but it is just important because he gets confronted with these questions as well, ‘slow start’ and these kind of things, and then it’s like you have to score a hat-trick here or whatever. He was all about first defending and then you will get your chances again. We were in these moments and I think he had a pretty big one, which he takes with one touch – if he takes two touches he was completely free and I think he could have finished it off there. So, [I am] really pleased for him, top performance and showed an outstanding attitude tonight.
On how close he thinks Liverpool are to the level he wants...
I am not interested. Look, this is a completely normal game for us. Last year we nearly won all four competitions, but drew twice against Tottenham, so winning here is incredibly difficult. It is not about now that we have to play all the time like this or whatever. What we have to show is the attitude, the commitment to defending. That’s what we have to show all of the time, definitely, 100 per cent. What we have to show is that we are not punched too hard when you concede a goal. I liked that tonight; I didn’t want to concede a goal, but I thought the reaction afterwards was good. Of course, the opponent’s stadium back and everything, it’s really difficult, but everybody was 100 per cent in and threw everything in and that’s what I liked the most. You cannot be consistent by just playing all the time outstandingly well, it’s all about showing the resilience we showed tonight. This is not the start or whatever, we are in a phase, we realised already and spoke about it, but for tonight we couldn’t reach more than three points. We got them and that’s massive.
