Press conferenceJürgen Klopp: The boys delivered exactly what was needed at Burnley
Jürgen Klopp praised the maturity of a performance that secured Liverpool’s gritty 1-0 win over Burnley at Turf Moor.
Fabinho’s goal five minutes before the break proved the difference as the Reds recorded a sixth successive victory across all competitions.
Sunday’s win means Klopp’s team sit nine points behind Manchester City, albeit with a game in hand over the Premier League leaders, and seven clear of third-placed Chelsea.
Read a transcript of the boss’ post-match press conference below…
Extended highlights: Burnley 0-1 Liverpool
On whether a 1-0 was the best result he could hope for given the adverse weather conditions…
Absolutely. I am absolutely delighted with the way we played the circumstances, it was so tricky. Only if you stood on the pitch I think you could really feel the wind to the whole extent, because where we were in front of the stand, it didn’t feel that bad but on the pitch it was ridiculous because it came from all directions. But the boys deal with it. Obviously over the years my teams learned to deal with the circumstances and that is not speaking too much about it before the game. We ask ourselves to use it instead of suffering from it, that’s what happens when you are longer here. So, really, a difficult game. Yes, they had their moments but from a specific moment on. Actually I think it felt like they had more moments than they actually had because of the late offside flag. There was already a lot of situations where we defended them really well, the flag came late and Ali made a save that he didn’t even put the flag up anymore – so that’s like really crazy. But that’s the way it is and I am really happy. Today, complete adults’ football was needed and that’s what the boys delivered. I am really happy about that.
On Fabinho being Liverpool’s new goalscoring midfielder…
Yeah, great! Actually he probably would have already scored much more goals for Liverpool if I would have put him in the box in offensive set-pieces: only recently we put him in and since then he scores! Great goal, an absolutely great goal. Yes, the space where the ball came to Sadio was the plan, but not in that height obviously so Sad made absolutely the most of it with a great header, great deflection, and then timing perfect with it. Fab is there for the first one, then scores a counter-pressing goal in the six-yard box which is absolutely outstanding.
On Sadio Mane’s performance after only returning to training on Friday…
Sad played really, really well. As I said before [the game], it was not the plan to start him today because we know how intense everything was, but Diogo had a dead leg and couldn’t train yesterday, so we started Sadio. Luis has adapted really well but this is a completely different game, like a ‘Welcome to the Premier League’, so we didn’t want to try it if we didn’t need it so that’s why we started like we started – and Sad did really well. He worked incredibly hard and that’s exactly what we expected.
On whether Virgil van Dijk is back to his best…
Definitely, definitely, you can see it in all movements and everything. We were always convinced that it would happen. He is completely back on track, he is absolutely at his best again and I would say it’s good timing because the decisive part of the season is coming up now. Long may it continue.
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