COST KLOPP
league games in a season in back-to-back campaigns for only the second time in the Premier League era, having previously done so in 1993-94 and 1994-95. Adams both missed gilt-edged chances to open the scoring before Mane’s thunderbolt on the stroke of half-time.
Yoshida headed straight at Adrian from four yards from a James Ward- Prowse corner before Adams nodded over the bar from Yan Valery’s looping cross. Mane made his former employers pay for those spurned chances, cutting in from the left before curling an unstoppable right-foot shot beyond Angus Gunn from 18 yards.
Klopp said: “It was a really explosive goal, cutting inside and then a nice finish. ”
Firmino should have made it 2-0 midway through the second ■ Southampton have lost both of their first two Premier League games of a season for the first time since their first season back in the division in 2012-13. half but side-footed wide with only the helpless Gunn to beat.
The Brazilian made amends minutes later by finishing a mazy run into the box with a precise low strike into the bottom right corner of Gunn’s goal.
That should have been game over but Adrian, who had made an almost identical error in the first-half when he hammered a clearance against England ace Ward-prowse, clearly had other ideas.
Ings could have snatched a point in the dying moments ■ Alex Oxlade-chamberlain made his first Premier League start for Liverpool since April 2018 (v Bournemouth at Anfield), one year and 125 days ago. when Valery flashed a teasing low cross into the six-yard box only for the ex-burnley ace to air kick with the goal at his mercy. Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl, whose side have now lost both of t heir opening g a me s , was stunned to see the chance go begging.
Hasenhuttl said: “I was on the pitch ready to celebrate because I thought it was a goal.
“We had three players in good positions and if Ings did not take it one of them should have. For what the guys invested today they deserved to take at least a point and didn’t. It is tough to take. But this is the difference, a player like Mane, you see all his quality in that moment and you are 1-0 down.
“I would worry more if we were not creating chances but I saw a team that believe in what we are doing.”