Klopp satisfied after edging dirty victory over Atletico
Liverpool manager Jurgen K lo pp took great satisfaction in ‘three dirty points’ after a wild 3-2 Champions League win over 10-man Atletico Madrid in the Wanda Metropolitano.
Having taken an early 2-0 lead through Mohamed Salah and Naby Keita, Klopp’s side were pegged back by an Antoine Griezmann double before half-time.
Griezmann was sent off after the break to give Liverpool a numerical advantage and Salah’s penalty put them ahead with 12 minutes to go.
But it still required a reversal of his decision to award Atletico a spot-kick by referee Daniel Sie bert after reviewing the pitchside monitor for the visitors to make it three wins from three in Group B.
“We still had to defend with all we had because even with 10 men they were quite intense to play,” said Klopp. “But the dirty three points are very often the most important, and they were dirty. It was not our best football but we got them and that’s a big step.
“When these two teams face each other then some drama I would say is guaranteed. Both teams are proper fighting units, are used to fighting for the things they want to reach.
“The story of the game is a special one because you don’t very often go 2-0 up against Atletico after 13 minutes.
“The human brain can be your biggest enemy. We misunderstood that situation completely: we wanted to controlthe game in the wrong way, we played in the wrong spaces and obviously gave two cheap goals away. I told the boys at half-time, it’s really positive because we know much more now than we knew before the game about them, we just have to use the right spaces.
“That’s what we tried to do, but then obviously the game got even more dramatic because of the decisions and the things that happened.”
Victory not only gave Liverpool a five-point lead in their group, with them able to secure qualification next time out at home to Atletico, but extended their unbeaten run to 21 matches in all competitions, their longest sequence without defeat since a run of 24 from January to May 1989.
Salah’s two goals took him to 31 in the Champions League for the club, passing Steven Gerrard’s record to become the Reds’ leading scorer in Europe’ s premier competition.
By taking his tally to 12 in 11 matches, Salah also set another record, becoming the first Liverpool player to score in nine consecutive matches.