Press conferenceJürgen Klopp's verdict on Liverpool's victory at San Siro
A second Divock Origi winner in the space of three days ensured the Reds finished their Group B campaign boasting a perfect record of six victories from six matches.
Earlier, Mohamed Salah’s 20th goal of the season had equalised Fikayo Tomori’s opener on an evening during which Joe Gomez and Naby Keita made their returns from injury with second-half substitute appearances.
Read on for a transcript of Klopp’s post-match press conference…
On the pride he feels about Liverpool being the first English team to win all six Champions League group games…
Honestly, I don’t feel pride a lot in football because most of the time I expect good things to happen, to be honest, but that tonight fills me with a lot of pride. It’s an exceptional performance. I don’t mean that we won six games – the reason is especially this game because it was so good. With that many changes, it is easy for me to make the changes but in the end the boys have to be then confident enough to show how good they are. And I saw so many good football things tonight, it was absolutely incredible. And as an aside, the fact we won all the games, which is absolutely incredible and it’s just another chapter in the history of this wonderful group of players. What they did in the last few years is exceptional. But it is nothing, it is not a prize really [and] you win something. It’s nice but I would have taken each points tally to go to the next round – 18 is the best, so we take that as well.
On Tyler Morton’s performance…
I don’t want to make his life more complicated than it is already with playing at such a young age for a club like Liverpool in a game like this with a performance like this, so I think we should all calm down – but it was really good tonight. And it was a big pleasure to watch the boy playing and the football knowledge, the football brain he showed tonight was absolutely exceptional. If you are technically on that level – and he is, obviously – and you have then such good orientation then sometimes you have enough time for doing good stuff. That was what he did tonight. On top of that, he defended incredibly well, together with the other boys. I have to say, it was really exceptional what Oxlade and Taki did in these half-spaces. For Oxlade, he is in a really good moment, but Taki it is not his natural position, so I have to say the all over performance was really special tonight.
On whether he spoke to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and if Milan deserved to finish fourth in the group…
First and foremost, I spoke to Zlatan in the tunnel; not spoke, we shook hands before the game in the tunnel. That’s it and I don’t think that’s an important story on a night like this. Do I think AC Milan deserves being last in the group? No. I like the project of AC Milan a lot, it is a good mix of youth and experience. It’s a really good team when they are all together. They have injury problems in the moment, obviously, and that hurts everybody. But if the group is together then it is really, really interesting what will happen here in the next few years. I’m really excited about that. Nobody in that group actually deserved to be last but maybe it can help because now the wonderful campaign in Serie A is not disrupted by [European] football anymore, now this group can concentrate on the league and maybe they can use that.
On how Liverpool stopped Milan from getting the ball to Ibrahimovic…
That’s football actually – that’s what you try, you organise a football team like that, that he cannot get the balls he needs or he wants. I really thought we defended exceptionally well. The plan of Milan is playing through the centre obviously, playing through the half-spaces. This is the spaces between the winger and our eights. They don’t play immediately to Zlatan, they try to bring it to the other offensive player in these spaces, and we made that really complicated because of the disciplined work of all the players. When you then get only the other balls, not the controlled ones then it’s easier to defend. But I have to say that Nat Phillips and Ibou Konate played an exceptional game, an absolutely exceptional game. How they defended that tonight is outstanding and I am really, really proud of the boys.