Jürgen Klopp hails Liverpool's comeback strategy in winning Wolves 3-1
 |
| Jurgen Klopp |
At Molineux on Saturday, seven minutes into the first half, the hosts took the lead thanks to a goal from Hwang Hee-chan.
Cody Gakpo, though, ignited yet another Liverpool comeback with an equalizer on minute 55, and Andy Robertson gave Klopp's team the lead late on. Harvey Elliott's goal, off Hugo Bueno, then completed the stunning turnaround.
The following is a summary of Klopp's assessment of the game from his post-game news conference.
On what he was thinking at half-time…
Oh, I thought in the first half a couple of times, what the… We were not ready first half obviously, but Wolves did really well on top of that. You could see it in these situations when they threw three players into the box and we were not there, the last step not there. I worked with these boys now, with some of them a few weeks, seven, eight or nine weeks, with some longer – I know when they can they are there. Today they couldn’t in a lot of moments. You saw it with Macca, saw it with other players, they didn’t have the legs today.
But I know as well after a long time if you can get through a first half with a reasonable result, like not being massively down, you can turn it. But the team needed help and thankfully we could deliver the help a little bit with a change and a change of system and these kinds of things. Obviously completely different halves. You saw pretty much the same players first half looked a bit rusty and second half the boys were… it looked much easier. Wolves played a super first half, we a really bad one. Second half we were really good, controlled the game and kept going and scored one and then not directly the second so we needed a while. But we stayed calm, I liked that a lot, it was no rush, we didn’t kick balls somewhere, we really tried to play around, break lines. So, 3-1 is a result I didn’t expect after 20 minutes and maybe not in half-time, but during the second half we deserved the result, and so that’s fine. He did well, he did really well. It was really good, a nice, wonderful experience for him. He came on always in very decisive moments, he didn’t come on to close games or whatever, we had to do something there. And today he was good, I have to say. In such a disorganised team like we were in the first half, being the one who looks kind of alright is a statement absolutely. So, really happy for him. He is obviously pretty happy in the moment as well. A good boy.
On Dominik Szoboszlai’s performance…
We have to say, he has a massive influence on our game already. He didn’t play well first half; he was there, he lost balls and stuff like this where you think, ‘Oh God.’ We lost so many balls. I think the main situations of Wolves were when we gave the ball away pretty much in the centre-circle and then they had the counter-attacks. And then had the diagonal balls to Neto, obviously we left Joey in a one-v-one situation, Neto in a really good first half. Those were the moments and that doesn’t help. But he stays in the game, that’s probably the biggest strength – so it’s not a great game but he stays in the game. Second half we played Curtis and Dom on a double-six, which is a very offensive double-six but they did really well, they did really smart both of them. And so he turned it into a really good game.
On Mohamed Salah’s influence on the game, with two assists and a big involvement in the third goal...
He is unbelievable, he is involved in everything. First half wasn’t great, obviously, but then – again – a different system and he is a key-moment player, definitely. He is always there when we need him. Like everybody, really stepped up in the second half. Really good.
via Liverpool FC
Post a Comment