ReactionJürgen Klopp press conference: Crystal Palace victory, Salah's 200th goal and more
Jürgen Klopp praised his squad's ability to impact games from the bench following Liverpool's late 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
The Reds secured all three points in the first minute of added time thanks to substitute Harvey Elliott, who struck from outside the area to complete a second-half comeback.
Jean-Philippe Mateta had earlier put Palace ahead from the penalty spot near the hour, before Jordan Ayew was sent off for a second bookable offence.
Mohamed Salah, assisted by another substitute in Curtis Jones, then levelled the game a minute on from Ayew's dismissal in the 75th minute – his 200th goal in all competitions for Liverpool – while Elliott's 20-yard hit won the contest late on.
In his post-match press conference afterwards, Klopp reflected on the victory, Salah's milestone , his squad's contribution overall and much more...
On Liverpool's performance and the outcome...
I'm a very happy manager in this moment, but I know we were lucky as well. If you only win your really good games you have no chance to be really successful, that's how it is, and obviously today was not a really good game from us. For 76 minutes it was a really bad performance. We did have rhythm changes; we didn't have any kind of acceleration. We had no timing. I don't know how often we were offside, it was horrendous, so that's always a bit of a sign that we are a bit too passive and stuff like this, when one passes the ball and the other is already there [in an offside position] it makes no sense. I think in the beginning, Crystal Palace was not extremely high on confidence – it looked a little bit like that. They didn't really go for us. They were good but we made it happen for them as well, with bad passes and losing the ball in the wrong moment.
They could've had a penalty in the first half. It was a foul on Wata [in the build-up]; I think that was a foul, or at least in the first moment it was a foul. Then we conceded when they got the penalty, and it looked like we needed that today a little bit. Of course, on top of that then they got the red card and we scored directly after that. That's all helpful and that's why I said we were lucky as well, definitely. But what we did from 76 to 105 [minutes] or whatever, that was really good because we all know against 10 men you can have much more problems than we had today.
We really turned the game around, the subs were super-influential and made a super impact. That's actually the story so far this season, what we bring from the bench has a real impact. That's why we could do it, but again if Harvey mishits that ball, it's a draw, if Mo is not there where he is and the ball doesn't get deflected then we lose the game. I know these things happen like that, but with the last 15 or 20 minutes we deserved it. Before that, we deserved nothing.
On scoring an injury-time winner for the 16th time in the Premier League as Liverpool manager...
It gets more and more easier because we play 115 minutes! We just have much more time. I didn't know that, and I don't even know if it's a great number or not, to be honest. I take it, of course. That's actually what we have to do. I love this team and I'm super-positive about it and all the development, but I know we still have to do things better and stuff like this. But is it now fair to say our mentality after 76 minutes is greater than it was before? Then where were we? I know it's tough and it's hard and these boys play an awful lot of football and stuff like this. Sometimes the inner enemy is a bit louder than in other moments. Today I saw a lot of boys struggling with that and, how I said, then you can change from outside from the bench. You can change it, but we should not come into that situation much more often.
On Salah's 200th Liverpool goal...
[It's] pretty impressive. We carried that shirt already since two weeks with us and now finally we could give it to him. It was pretty much the best moment to score it, to be 100 per cent honest. Incredible number for a super-special, super, super-special player. I don't know how often he saved us with a goal he scored in the right moment. It was a pretty loud reception in the dressing room when I gave him the shirt with the 200 on the back. Players were asking for a speech, but you have to ask him if he had one, because I [had to] go for media work! I don't know if he had one. But [it's] really special, [I'm] really happy for him now that it's off the shoulder because when you have 199 it's probably different to 198, so now we can go for the next 100.
On whether his team are now more reliant on the squad overall than a fixed starting 11 compared to previous seasons…
They're very similar situations. I don't know exactly which was which season, but let me say we started with Fabinho, Henderson and Wijnaldum and then we had Milner and then Lallana the year before. Then we had Oxlade-Chamberlain and then we had Naby Keita and we had up front Shaqiri, Origi and Minamino; that's what you need to make a difference. Now we have the quality again so that's how it is. We would've had today if he wouldn't have been injured Diogo Jota, which would've been super-helpful. That's how it is. The boys have quality. That's why they show it. It's more the mindset. The bad thing about the amount of games we play is that it's really tiring. It's just like that.
The good thing is they all can play and they have to play, so we can make these kind of moves like today because one is the player change but we changed system. I don't want any praise for that, it's just a job to do, but that helped as well that we could really do that. In the end we played up front with Mo and Harvey as a 10. Cody Gakpo right, Lucho left and then Lucho inside with Kosti higher. So, we tried everything and then it worked out, but very often nothing works out anymore. That's all up to the players that they really then take these little helping hands we can give. We just played better and then it looked all of a sudden against 10 men; we played quite frequently with 10 men this year and it was difficult, really difficult to create against us. So, I know how difficult it is. People will say that made a difference, but they did probably really well. We just played then really good. That's what it is.
On whether he has an ideal system for his team...
That makes no sense if I think about that because we just have to work with the players we have available. I mean now physically available, who is here and who is there and what can we do. We can play with these boys in different systems, there's no shadow of a doubt, but in this moment if you bring, for example, all our four real offensive players, our strikers, it's possible they play together... or if we have very young players to bring on, that's why we have to think about a lot of things before the game. We came through this week; Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday 12.30pm. It was really tough, really tricky, but all good.