Crystal Palace 1-2 Liverpool: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp took great satisfaction in the hunger his Liverpool side displayed all throughout Saturday's dramatic 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
The Reds once again left it late as Roberto Firmino netted an 85th-minute winner at Selhurst Park just moments after Wilfried Zaha had equalised for the hosts.
The Premier League leaders took the lead through Sadio Mane in the early stages of the second half before a pulsating end to the affair.
Read on for a summary of Klopp's post-match press conference...
On the game itself...
I'm not surprised at all that it was tough, to be honest. You probably saw all my games [against Palace] since I'm in England, they were always similar, to be honest! We just know it's a tough place - the atmosphere is good, they don't give up. Crystal Palace doesn't need a lot of situations to stay in the game. We gave them much too many today because we were not compact enough, so we had the challenges in the wrong areas. It means we block them but it was always a set-piece, it was always a corner, always this kind of thing. That helped them more than us. The start was good. After that we always had good football moments, really good football, crisp passes as well. We knew before that they can play really good football. They were more often direct and did that pretty well, had moments after set-pieces.
We knew at half-time we had to do better. The challenges - I said it now to pretty much everybody and their dogs - that they [the players] come back from so many different national teams. So today I have absolutely no problem that we were not brilliant because in a game like this you just have to make sure that you fight for the right result. We were that from the first minute. Could we have played better? Yes, but we had players on the pitch that were on Thursday morning still in a plane back from Abu Dhabi, so that's not too cool. Getting a result at Crystal Palace is something we never take for granted. It feels good.
On whether this result sends out a message in regards to winning the Premier League...
I have no clue what people will say. But I know that 37 points after 13 matchdays is exceptional. You cannot have them with winning only brilliant games. We had a couple of really brilliant games - and we won them, thank God - but we cannot only win them, so that's how it is. We are not out there to send messages, we actually just want to get results.
On whether he is now used to late victories...
I said during the week that I really don't take it for granted, how can you? With all the things which were not so good, we were the dominant side, we were much more the active team, Crystal Palace defend most of the time deep. We don't stop with these things even on the day when it's not perfect. You could see the goal, you could see the face of the boys, 'Come on'. We know a set-piece, a corner, a flick is for us as well a chance. I thought the ball was in twice already before Bobby finished it off, I didn't see it back yet. I don't know if the goalie made a save or if the player blocked it on the line, I have no idea. But we scored that goal and from that moment on we defended really well. There was a bicycle kick, I think of Christian, after that, but apart from that not a lot of chances. So, five minutes to go, maybe 10 because the injury time was five minutes, there was a lot of time and we did well in that period, so absolutely OK.
We are not out there to show that we invented football because we didn't. We have a job to do, we have to get results for our colours and that's what we did again. Now we play Napoli and then Brighton is coming and they're all so difficult, and then I think we have the derby, right? So tough games to come and we still create a basis for us, that's what we are still doing. Hopefully we can continue with that.
On potentially equalling the club's record for longest top-flight unbeaten run next week against Brighton and Hove Albion...
I have no clue about the record. I don't know what it means, to be honest, because I should think about it before I answer - so far, I had no time. That would mean we need a result next week, so I'm fine with that. We really need a result against Brighton next week but before that we have to play against Napoli and then we will see. We are not out there to break records or whatever. We are really there to get the best results over the full season. If on that way we break one or two records, good and we take that of course. But winning the next game is much more important than people saying in 10 or 15 years, 'That was the record set by this team'. We really have a bigger job to do. But how I said, if one depends on the other then we take both.