Klopp Talk: It Was a Nearly Perfect Night

Yep. That’s it. That’s all that needs to be said.

This will be the second week that Liverpool are sitting at the top of the league. And the fact that it’s coming from a 3-1 victory against an openly petulant Mourinho (and also the United team he’s mismanaging) is surely just the icing on the cake. You can hardly begrudge Klopp for just how ecstatic he was after the game, especially because for the most part, this was one of the best performances we’ve seen since he took charge.

“The brilliant start was one of the best performances we had since I’m in Liverpool, to be honest, not only this season,” Klopp said after the game. “The first half an hour was outstanding, outstanding. We scored only once but I don’t think anyone expects to score three, four, five times or whatever. How we played was just perfect, really.”

Which, yes. This was an excellent game from Liverpool, as long as you don’t think too hard about those corners. Everything else worked like clockwork, though:

“We tried to pass in the right areas, we accelerated, we wanted the ball back, we played in behind the line, stuff like that. It was just good,” Klopp added.

Of course, the United goal was a bit of a blip in the game, especially because it came from a rather egregious Alisson error. The halftime whistle gave Liverpool enough of a break, though, and the team came back ready to win.

“We stayed in the game, got the dominance back step by step and then Shaq closed the game,” Klopp said. “Unbelievable, it’s really nice and I think absolutely deserved tonight. You need a bit of luck, what we needed for both goals with the deflections, but bringing the situations, having these moments, that was football, huh? The first goal: what a goal, what a goal. It was brilliant and exactly like they have to do it — fantastic pass, super control and a fantastic finish, that’s how it should be. It was a nearly perfect night for us.”

When asked what this victory, and Manchester City’s victory yesterday, meant for the title race, Klopp was practical:

“If there is a moment in the end of the season when we’re still around [City] and we have to think about [them] and start hoping they drop points, maybe [we’ll watch them] — I don’t know today. In the moment we respect them a lot, they respect us, and we have to win football games against all the others. Then we meet them on January 3 again and then we think about City a lot.”

Before Jan 3rd’s game against City, Liverpool will have a packed schedule, with games against Wolves, Newcastle, and Arsenal.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com