Klopp defends Firmino’s form after Jota’s hat-trick for Liverpool in Atalanta



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Publication date: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 8:08 AM

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists that Diogo Jota’s sensational form hasn’t given him a headache when it comes to breaking his three established forwards.

Much of the success that Klopp has had, winning the Champions League and the Premier League, is due to the way that Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino have combined on the attack line.

However, Firmino was eliminated by 5-0 Champions League against Atalanta in Bergamo to make way for the fit Diogo Jota and the new signing took his chance with a hat-trick.


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The former Wolves player has scored six goals in the last 10 games and already has more goals for the club in 2020 (seven) than Firmino (five).

And while some may see that as a problem for the Brazilian international, Klopp sees it differently.

“Good performances never give me a headache,” he said.

“By tonight the decision was clear. It made sense to use the good form Diogo is in and because of the way Atalanta plays and defends, Diogo’s abilities help.

“But the world is sometimes a bad place where in a moment when someone is shining we immediately talk about another player, who seems to have played 500 games in a row for us and we would not be in the Champions League if Bobby Firmino is not there. with us, and I have to explain why he’s not on the team. It will be on the team.

“It is important that we are over 11 and tonight Diogo played a super game and that says nothing about Bobby and nothing to do with giving me headaches.

“I’m more than happy the boys played like they did tonight.”

Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane were the other scorers on a night in which last season’s high-scoring quarter-finalists were impressed.

It means Liverpool have won their first three group matches for the first time and have already opened a five-point lead at the top of Group D with two home games to come.

“Everything I said (about Atalanta) before the game was 100% true,” Klopp added.

“I’ve been in this business long enough to see when another team is playing good football and it can cause problems for the team. That didn’t change because of tonight’s game.

“We are good too. We know we have to play well and develop our potential and we did.

“We defended Atalanta at an incredibly high level, we played our best football and scored the goals.

“We scored five goals and we could have scored two or three more, but Alisson also had to make three world-class saves to show how great the threat is when you let them do what they do well.

“All the performances of my team tonight were good and that’s why we won the game, the result is not so important, we just wanted to win.”

Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini admits that his defensive problems are cause for concern.

“We struggled with the rhythm of the game. Let’s see the next games, we have time to work on ourselves, ”he said.

“We are conceding too much lately and scoring less, we did not run enough and not well enough, all the things we have to work on.”

There are no representatives from Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester City in our roundup of the top ten players of the season. Not Manchester United, of course, but is Jay Rodriguez coming in ?!



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