Boss on Origi's impact, the Anfield atmosphere and patience paying off
Jürgen Klopp praised Divock Origi after the Belgian's first Premier League goal of the season set Liverpool on their way to a 2-0 win over Sunderland at Anfield on Saturday afternoon.
Origi came off the bench in the first half after Philippe Coutinho was forced off with an ankle injury, and the 21-year-old striker finally broke the deadlock for the dominant hosts 15 minutes from time.
James Milner's injury-time penalty then sealed a deserved three points for the Reds.
In his post-match press conference Klopp offered an update on the fitness of Coutinho, as well as an assessment of his side's performance, Origi's impact and what he has learned from the match.
Read on for a full transcript...
On whether he felt a sense of déjà vu before Origi’s goal following last week’s 0-0 draw at Southampton…
No, I didn’t think for a second in this game today about Southampton. Today was much more defensive. I’m not sure I’ve ever played against a more defensive team than today. Man-marking against Phil Coutinho, [Victor] Anichebe left full-back, don’t know how many touches [Jermain] Defoe had, so that [comparing the games] would not be nice to Southampton.
LFCTV GO: Klopp's post-Sunderland press conference
On getting the crowd going in the second half…
I’m not sure. I’m not sure what I thought at this moment, but what I can say is in my experience, in a game like this, with the quality we have and skills the players show we force teams in defence. That means you cannot come through all the time, that’s how it is. We all need to learn to handle a situation like this, we have the football solution and we work on it and that’s what we try to do all the time, but then of course I believe in atmosphere. I think it’s a big, big part of the game, part of the joy. The crowd was really, really, really good in the first half and in the second half it was like ‘come on, now we’ve waited long enough’. Like I said, in a game like this the decisions are made in the small moment, in the detail. Atmosphere’s more than a detail, but it makes everything easier. That’s why I tried to remind the crowd, and they reacted more than brilliantly. After that it was easier for everyone to enjoy the challenge today.
On Origi’s impact showing that he has lots of attacking options…
Do you think we have so many options today? We have more players for different situations, that’s all good, but two more defensive, two very young [on the bench today]. I am fine, really happy about the skills of the boys, but injury is never a positive thing. Only to show that Divock Origi is a good football player, I don’t need injury of another player. But when Div came in, it’s how it is in life, timing is very important and now he’s ready again and that’s good. Maybe it’s a coincidence in this situation, but he’s ready again. He had a few problems after the summer break, not big, then he nearly played nowhere, not for Belgium, not for us and that’s not good. Today he was switched on from the first second, and it’s not an easy situation, nobody could’ve expected in this moment that we had to make a substitution, but we did it and Div was immediately in the game, that was really, really important. I saw the goal now, you can play how you want, where you want [but] in the end you need someone who shoots the ball in the goal and that was the situation. The box was pretty full, but he scored a similar goal already – I’m not sure against who, but it was a surprise for their goalkeeper and it was a good decision. He deserved it very, very much because even in these not very easy times for him, he is a very positive guy and always ready to learn. He’s still a young boy and today he got the benefit for this work.
On what he has learned from today…
That we are able to beat even the most defensive team I have ever played against. That’s actually a nice thing to learn. It’s not about me to say what other teams are doing, but we forced them in this position. With Anichebe, I don’t think the plan was for him to play left full-back, but with the positioning of [Nathaniel] Clyney, when we saw he follows him wherever he is going, we put Clyney in a higher position and that gave us space in other spaces. The box was quite full and we had the situations where we could have made this or that better decisions, but the closer the space gets the more difficult it is so you need to stay patient, it’s not allowed to get frustrated or things like this in their body language – you must really stay straight and in the situation, then you’re always ready for this one moment. We had the situations before we scored, Gini [Wijnaldum] was close, but maybe [we were] not greedy enough in this moment but it’s a challenge in the whole development. We are ready for this situation, to play against teams like this, but it’s not easy. I saw a few minutes of Burnley v [Manchester] City and it did not look like it was easy for City there. That’s the job for all of us to do when you want to be in the top region of the table, you need to collect points and don’t care against who.