Jürgen Klopp: Beating City was 'simply the right statement' from LFC

In an absorbing contest on Merseyside, the Reds took an early lead via Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s powerful run and strike; however, Leroy Sane restored parity before the break.

But in an incredible nine-minute spell around the hour mark, the hosts left their opponents stunned as they raced into a 4-1 lead thanks to strikes from Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.

City did threaten a comeback in the dying stages as Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan netted to reduce Liverpool’s advantage, but Klopp’s side held on to clinch a victory and extend their own unbeaten sequence to 18 matches in all competitions.

Read on for a summary of the manager’s post-match press conference…

On his reaction to Liverpool’s performance…

It was not too bad! I am really, really, really happy about it; I’ve had absolutely worse days in my life, not a lot of bad ones but, to be honest, [I’ve had] a few worse than that. I really respect the quality of the opponent, to be honest. You can see what they do. If you want, you can see Man City five times a week pretty much; you watch it, you see it and you know you have to avoid this and deny that. OK, it’s all possible but it’s quite difficult. You need a really good football team to do that and thank God I have one! It then makes sense to try it - and they tried really hard today. It was just a joy to watch, how both teams threw everything on the pitch. The wind made it sometimes a little bit tricky here and there - the first goal we conceded and the fourth goal they conceded, I think the influence of the wind was quite obvious in these moments. But then, both again tried to play football - defended really well without not a lot of half-fouls, a few tacticals, especially from City in the period when we were really on track. It’s just a nice commercial for Premier League football. The whole world was watching it and if somebody didn’t like football until now then probably they would say, ‘that’s why you watch it all the time’. I am really happy about it.

On the Anfield atmosphere…

I enjoyed it! It was good. It was outstanding from the first second, from the minute of applause [for Tommy Lawrence] when the club again showed how respectful they deal with things, and I am really about this. From that second on, the first whistle, the atmosphere was outstanding and that helps always, that helps a lot. It’s one of the best places in world football if we are all on our toes. To be honest, if the atmosphere would not have been good in a game like that then something would have been really wrong!

On the difficulties of stopping Manchester City…

I said maybe it’s a historical day today because maybe this is the only game they will lose in the whole season. They are just strong, they are really good, but I really think we deserved the win, to be honest, against a really good football team. No injury issues [for City] I think; yes, David Silva didn’t play but his replacement was Ilkay Gundogan - not too bad! 100 per cent City’s team, [but] we played them really well. I think they deserved the tight result, but of course we could have won 4-1 as well. Tonight, we were really the deserved winner. If you look back to the first game [at the Etihad in September], it was like this until we got the red card. After that, it was not the same game anymore. It’s good to know for us that we can do it. We did really well and I am really happy about the game. It was fantastic.

On Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s performance…

It’s so nice to see how much he adapted. It’s just good and I am happy. I could not have had kind of an idea of what a good guy he is, to be honest. If you asked me what is better, the football player or the person, I would have to think a little bit about it. He is on a good way and enjoys it. He can still play [on] the wing, which is really important, [but he was] using the speed more and more in a midfield role. He needs to adapt a little bit and the midfield role was more of a dream for him than a reality because he didn’t play there often, but he is in a really good way.

On whether the result and performance made a statement…

It was simply the right statement. It’s not that I said in the meeting that I said, ‘boys, it would help a lot if you could win tonight so nobody speaks about Phil Coutinho anymore’ because we like talking about him, actually. He was probably still jumping in his new living room in Barcelona and happy about the win tonight. For us, it is important to show it is possible to play without him and we did that. It was a very important statement, absolutely, but that’s all - we knew before the game, we can only get three points and not more. We got them in a very important moment, so it feels good for tonight and now we have another long week to prepare for the Swansea game. So we should use that.

On Liverpool’s front-foot approach to the game…

You have no alternatives to beat City. Yes, you can win the lottery and they tackle each other! Then you can stand deep in your own box and in the end you hope nothing happens, but it is not really likely. We are Liverpool, we should not try this way, to be honest. Then you have no alternatives, you need to be brave, you need to play football and I am really happy about that. The pressing in the second half around the goals was different class. Just outstanding. Really outstanding, but playing football first half against a really good organised side. If you talk about City, it is always about how good they are football playing-wise, but they are also brilliantly organised, so against an organised team like that, playing football in the spaces we played with the situations we created - not plenty of chances, but half-chances and good moments - there is no alternative to play against them. That’s why we tried it again. I cannot make a match plan to avoid criticism after a game, I could not be less interested in that. We wanted to win the game and the boys deserved it tonight. That’s cool.