ReactionJürgen Klopp press conference: Sparta display, Mo Salah record and Bobby Clark
Jürgen Klopp praised his team’s approach to their task after Liverpool recorded a 6-1 win over Sparta Prague in the Europa League.
Holding a 5-1 aggregate lead from the first leg in Czechia, the Reds ensured their name will be in Friday’s quarter-final draw with an emphatic victory at Anfield.
Darwin Nunez, Bobby Clark, Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo all struck within the opening 14 minutes on Thursday night, and Dominik Szoboszlai and Gakpo again glossed the score in the second half.
Read a summary of Klopp’s verdict at his post-match press conference…
On his assessment of tonight’s performance…
We spoke about that obviously today in the team meeting and I said, I don’t expect us to lose 5-0 and you get knocked out but it’s a sold-out stadium, everything is prepared for a really good football game. We decide if we get through somehow or if we play a really good game, and there are so many reasons why we should try to play a really good game.
And then the boys started the game incredibly well. We were really, really after them, at them – however you want to call it – and scored wonderful goals. 4-0 after 14 minutes is really strange, and from that moment on it became a strange game because how can you now stay greedy and these kind of things? In that moment probably everybody thought, ‘OK, we have other games to come’, stuff like this. We tried as well at half-time, changing early. Robbo [Andy Robertson] on centre-half, Joey [Gomez] precaution, Darwin precaution. None of them was necessary to take off, it’s just obviously Sunday is another game so that’s the moment when we started thinking it as well. So when we start thinking like that, the boys think like that as well.
But still, good game, entertaining. Obviously we all experienced different atmospheres at Anfield but I’m really happy for all of us, crowd included, that this was not as nerve-wracking as it usually is. Everybody can go home with a normal heart rate and that’s how it should be from time to time. It will not stay like this! Sunday already will be a different game and now we have three days to try to make sure we’re ready for that.
On Clark scoring his first Liverpool goal and Salah becoming the first Red ever to score 20 times in seven consecutive seasons…
The second stat is now not really surprising because he’s an outstanding player. Mo is a special story today because it was not the plan that he plays 90 minutes. Actually the plan was to take him off in the moment when we brought Mateusz [Musialowski on] but then Bobby sat in front of me so it was clear we cannot do that now, that Bobby has to come off. But Mo is experienced enough that he recovered already during the game. I told him not to defend anymore – I don’t think I ever said that to a player. By the way, Mo, that’s different on Sunday!
Bobby, it’s really nice to see the boys develop and flourish, to be honest. That was a top performance of Bobby. A real performance. Goal yes. But he set up whichever goal with winning the ball back up high, really high pressing situation – top, top, top. And then controlling a football game, with all the excitement inside that he definitely still has, is fantastic. He is the only one we worry a little bit [about injury-wise]; I hope it’s nothing but he sat there and said he felt something, so we had to take him off. Besides that, everybody else should be fine.
On whether he ‘felt sorry for Sparta’...
Look, I am obviously a coach myself and I spoke now to Brian [Priske]. There is a quality difference. That was clear before the game and it is always like this: if the team with the higher quality shows a good attitude, which we did, then it will be tricky. Where is the chance? A long time in my life I obviously worked for a smaller club – not that Sparta are a small club – but I worked in Germany for a smaller club with Mainz. You can win games but you need a little bit of help from the opponent – we didn’t give any help [tonight]. The boys showed a top, top, top attitude and so it was difficult and then we all know how these things can go. It’s now a tough week for Sparta, but my feeling is the way their supporters enjoyed the trip at least and how they behaved at the home game when we were there, which was great, the rest of the season now starts and they can fight for the title. If they deal with it in the right way, which I am not in doubt about, that can help as well.
On the unique record Salah achieved with his goal...
I’ve worked seven years together with him, so one problem we never had was consistency. Mo is just delivering and delivering and delivering, his desire doesn’t stop. His quality is anyway there, but then his desire to score just doesn’t stop. He improved in so many aspects since he started here. He will not stop. So, I’m less surprised than maybe some others, I thought it had already happened, to be honest, in this season but he was injured for a while and that’s why he couldn’t do it [earlier] otherwise it would have happened in January or February. So, great, very good and, as I said, great to have him back.