Klopp glad win puts Phil talk to bed
Reds gaffer says his side made a vital statement
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’.
“We like speaking about him. He’ll still be jumping in his new living room in Barcelona, happy about the win tonight.
“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 from Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan set up a nervy finish, but Liverpool held on.
Klopp, whose postmatch press conference was bizarrely interrupted by an interloper asking him about his favourite type of cake, said: “You need a really good football team to do that (to City) and, thank God, I have one. They tried really hard today.
“It was just a joy to watch, how both teams threw everything on the pitch. It is a nice commercial for Premier League football.
“The whole world was watching. If someone didn’t watch football until now, now they’ll see why people watch it all the time. I’m really happy about it.”
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.”