Man City win an ‘important statement’ for post-Coutinho Reds
JURGEN Klopp felt Liverpool made an “important statement” as they beat Premier League leaders Manchester City in their first match since selling Philippe Coutinho.
The Reds prevailed 4-3 in a compelling Anfield encounter, inflicting a first league defeat of the season on City, days after Coutinho left the club to join Barcelona in a deal worth a reported £142million.
Liverpool manager Klopp said: “It’s not that I said in a meeting, ‘Boys, it would help a lot if you could win tonight so nobody speaks about Phil Coutinho anymore’.
“But it was important to show we can play without him and we did that. That’s a very important statement.”
Liverpool took control with goals from Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah in a blistering nine-minute spell in the second half after Leroy Sane had cancelled out Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s early strike. Goals for City from Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan set up a nervy finish, but Liverpool held on.
City boss Pep Guardiola suggested his side struggled to deal with the raucous atmosphere inside Anfield as Liverpool took control.
Guardiola said: “My first words are congratulations to Liverpool for the victory. It was a good game.
“They started well. We lost a lot of balls because they are so aggressive without the ball and we had problems controlling that.
“After that we started to play much better and we have good chances, especially in the second half we started good — until the goal from Firmino.
“After that we lost a bit of control. We were involved in the environment of Anfield, for many reasons.
“You have to try to be stable and there are good lessons (to be learned), especially for the knockout stages of the Champions League.”