New pragmatic Liverpool swap style for points

Jurgen Klopp knew exactly how to respond after a fortunate victory over his closest friend. “He said sorry,” reported David Wagner, Huddersfield’s head coach.

Liverpool’s manager was not apologising just out of sympathy. His team had played poorly and won only thanks to defensive sturdiness and breaks of luck.

The one positive for Klopp, thanks to Mohamed Salah’s welltaken 24th-minute winner, was that his team eked out the win against lowly opponents despite misfiring, something that probably would not have happened last seaby step, doing different things. Now we have to be better in the midfield press. Our midfield press wasn’t our problem against Huddersfield, though. Our problem was only that when we had the ball, we could have done better.”

Liverpool got one pass right when it really mattered; Xherdan Shaqiri’s sublime through-ball allowed Salah to steer in his 50th goal in English club football, and his first in five games.

Otherwise, it was a tough night for a rejigged forward line; Sadio Mane was injured and Roberto Firmino restricted to a late substitute appearance, and so Adam Lallana made his first league start since New Year’s Day and Daniel Sturridge his first since February, when he was on loan at West Bromwich Albion. Both got minutes under their belt and little else.

“Top teams have to win games like this,” Shaqiri said. “You cannot always play good football. Sometimes you just have to win games