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Jürgen Klopp reflected on a “really tough” match after Liverpool struggled to defeat FC Midtjylland 2-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
After a goalless first half in which the Reds lost Fabinho to injury requiring further evaluation, Diogo Jota and substitute Mohamed Salah scored to secure three points at Anfield.
The result against the Danish champions put Klopp’s men at the top of Group D, with two victories in the two heats played in the section.
In his post-game press conference, the coach discussed the struggles his team faced that night, Rhys Williams’ performance off the bench and more.
Read a summary below …
On how difficult the game turned out to be …
Almost as difficult as I expected, to be honest, for different reasons. We made a lot of changes and it’s my job to decide, obviously I have all the information on what the guys did. But again for different reasons, the game was really complicated. They pushed like crazy, they played a really frantic match and we couldn’t calm down in the decisive moments. But actually the individual performances, for not playing that long, as if Div didn’t play for a while, it was absolutely fine. Shaq didn’t play for a longer period, absolutely great: 90 minutes, amazing. Taki, very lively but obviously not exactly in the game. This kind of thing was fine, but of course, you saw, when a team defends like them, you need your patterns and we won’t show them tonight. That doesn’t help.
But we scored a goal anyway in probably the best moment in football where we really spent exactly how we should have. They had many possibilities, two or three, Ali was there, all these kinds of things. That helps, obviously. So you just have to fight and that’s what we did. It is like in a marriage, it is in good times and in bad times you have to stay together. This is the moment. It is just complicated; many games, player after player says goodbye for a while [with injury] and then we still have to play the next game, and in our case we have to win it. We try everything we have and I’m very happy with that. And everything else will come again.
On Williams making his second Champions League appearance and defensive options for West Ham United’s game this weekend …
Boss, Rhys 🙌 https://t.co/v49S9JqhNR
– LFC (Liverpool FC)
October 27 10:14 PM
He did really well. The only problem we have now is that unfortunately we have four days to go to the West Ham game and every day you will make a story of him and then he has to show that he can deal with that too because before everything was quiet around him. We try to do that too. He is a talent, he plays for England Under 20, he is 19 years old. I didn’t give any news when I said that he has more Champions League minutes than Premier League because he hasn’t played the Premier League yet and now he has two Champions League appearances. He won both games on top of that, which is pretty exceptional. He did well, everything looks promising.
Aside from Rhys, we still have Nat Phillips, who for the reason that we think he might transfer to another club, is not on the Champions League squad, which is strange. But it is also a central medium. Club [Koumetio] boy, I’m not sure he can train now tomorrow or not, but he will train again. So, we have very young and inexperienced alternatives, and at the moment it seems that we have to choose one of them. I do not know yet. But to be really clear and positive, Rhys wasn’t in a situation tonight, our problem, he played a really good game.
On the changes he made to his starting lineup to face Midtjylland …
The lineup we chose was [that] We wanted to show the respect we have for Midtjylland because we desperately needed fresh legs. You saw that we needed every new leg we could get and with the five possible changes we could finish the game.
On whether anything about the visitors’ performance surprised him …
No, not really. Again, with the five gears, I think it’s easier to keep it that way for 90 minutes; I don’t think they have to play this kind of pressure much for 90 minutes in Denmark. But they did it tonight. I think Midtjylland wanted to prove a point tonight, and they probably did, that they can be a really awkward opponent. That’s what they were tonight. The challenge for us was dealing with the pressure. The high press was not a big problem, but then finding solutions in between … like I said, my fault due to many changes. We weren’t patient enough, we weren’t fast enough, all these kinds of things, football stuff. But they made us do it. They had three really great chances. So, no, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I know this is how football can be. What I said last night, they are not a small team. If people think you are a small team, in the game you can show how big you are and that is what Midtjylland did tonight. I hope everyone has seen it. I really respect.
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