Reaction'We're happy but there's work to do' - Hendo and Robbo on Villarreal win

The Reds have an advantage to take to Estadio de la Ceramica for the second leg next Tuesday after patience and perseverance carried them to victory at Anfield on Wednesday night.

Henderson forced the opening goal eight minutes into the second half when his cross was deflected off Pervis Estupinan and found the back of the net.

Mohamed Salah then set up Sadio Mane to deftly double the lead barely two minutes later, giving Jürgen Klopp’s men control of the tie as they aim to reach the showpiece in Paris.

Read Henderson and Robertson’s assessment of the evening’s action, speaking to BT Sport post-match, below…

Jordan Henderson

On breaking down Villarreal…

Yeah, they’re a very organised team, we knew they’d make it difficult. But it was important we just kept going, stayed positive and we had the confidence that if we did that and kept moving the ball quick we’d eventually break them down. And we did that with two good goals.

On the deflection that led to the first goal…

Is it? I thought it went straight in?! [Laughs] A little bit lucky. It was good play, good build-up. Little bit lucky but you need a little bit of luck when the team is in a low block. We got that with the first – and then I thought that lifted the crowd and thankfully, we got another one.

On the quality of Liverpool’s defending…

I thought the majority of the game the counter-press was really good, when we lost the ball high up the pitch the reaction to win it back and cause them problems was really good. And I think that made it really difficult for them at times. But you’ve got to give them credit, they’re a good team, hard to break down and the game is still alive. It will be a tough test over at Villarreal.

Andy Robertson

On the impact of the quickfire second goal…

We had quite a few chances in the first half, just trying to break them down and trying to keep doing what we were doing. The first goal always kind of does that. We then had a bit of momentum, the noise in here was incredible after the first goal and it kind of took us to the second one. We’d have liked to add maybe one more but it wasn’t meant to be. But a clean sheet and two goals, we can’t argue with that.

On the energy of Liverpool’s pressing…

You have to, it’s the semi-final of the Champions League – if you can’t run about for 90 minutes in this kind of game then when will you? Our intensity has been really high the last couple of games, we’ve had a real hectic schedule but we’re enjoying it and I think you saw that today. There’s still a lot of work to do in this tie but we’re happy with our work tonight.

On the importance of not getting frustrated in the search for an opening goal…

That was the message from Hendo at half-time and the gaffer at half-time, just saying we were playing well in the first half, probably the best stuff we’ve played, and we didn’t get a goal for it. But we kept going, we kept trying to be patient and luckily with a big deflection we managed to get the breakthrough.