Reaction'Really happy' - Jürgen Klopp's verdict on Liverpool 2-0 Everton
Jürgen Klopp explained why he was ‘really happy’ with the Liverpool performance that secured a 2-0 Merseyside derby win on Saturday.
The Reds chalked up a victory at the first opportunity after the international break, with Mohamed Salah netting twice in the second half at Anfield.
Salah’s double was enough to clinch three points from the Premier League meeting with Everton, who had been reduced to 10 men following an Ashley Young red card in minute 37.
Read Klopp’s summary of the game at his post-match press conference below…
On his assessment of how difficult an afternoon it was…
A difficult game. Even before the first whistle, I didn’t know 100 per cent how we would be ready for that. When we had the finishing in the warm-up Dom told me, ‘I actually never played a derby before.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Salzburg don’t have a derby, Leipzig don’t have a derby, Hungary has maybe a derby but the countries who would be a derby, we never played since I played international football.’ ‘OK, good, no problem, you give always 100 per cent so you are ready for the game.’
So you don’t know exactly how it is, and I liked what I saw, besides that we should have finished situations off better. They didn’t even become chances but there were super situations where we had four-v-one, four-v-two counter-attacks and with the quality we have, we have to play a better last pass. That didn’t happen so 0-0, red card, changed the game again. Everton were not [in] that deep a block before that but after that they were obviously [in] a really deep block. We had to get used to that, that took a little bit too long for my taste.
But what was really important today [was] that we didn’t get frustrated in the second half with the fact that we didn’t score already. And I thought we did that really well, I saw that we were ready just to play to the final whistle, try it, and then we scored the first goal. The penalty, really well done by Lucho crossing the ball in that moment; a one-v-two situation I think and then still can cross the ball. And then late, 2-0, game finished.
On whether Ibrahima Konate might have received a second yellow card in the second half…
To be 100 per cent honest, I didn’t see it back yet. I was not sure I saw it 100 per cent, I think I was somewhere else in that moment. But then when he is going down, Ibou I knew had a yellow card so I knew that could be now tricky. Then he didn’t get the second yellow and then I thought, OK, we don’t give it a chance and take him off. I understand, how you can imagine, the frustration of Everton and Sean [Dyche] in this moment, absolutely. Was it 0-0 still or was it 1-0? 0-0. 10 v 10. I thought we were the better side. Would we have won? I don’t know, we will never find out. But it’s not that I would have thought, OK, now we have no chance to win the game anymore. 100 per cent not. It would have been interesting. Would Everton have changed anything or not? We don’t know. Would they have been a bit more offensive or not? That’s all hypothetical obviously. 2-0 and we deserved the three points, I think there’s no doubt.
On the importance of responding to the last two league results…
I like to respond on things, but you need to have a reason to respond and you should be able to remember the thing you have to respond to. Two weeks since Brighton, the players were everywhere in the world, that makes no sense. I’m not happy that we are ‘back on track’ or whatever, I’m happy we won the game. Yeah, and 20 points, that’s what we wanted and that’s what we have now, so that’s absolutely great. Now Thursday, different competition, super-important as well, another home game, fantastic. And from there we go, that’s the situation. How I said, where the boys literally are coming from, I’m really happy with the performance, really. I liked it. And I didn’t hear anything different, we came all through without any kind of niggles, super-important. So, all good.