Liverpool registered their second straight win of the Premier League by beating Crystal Palace 2-0 at Selhurst Park yesterday. Goals from James Milner and Sadio Mane ensured the win for the Reds. They are now in second position in the table behind Manchester City. However, coach Jurgen Klopp felt that the team could have fared much better in the match.
Following the match, Klopp said, “There are not a lot of teams in the world who can line up (Andros) Townsend, (Wilfried) Zaha, (Christian) Benteke, (Luka) Milivojevic and all these players. They have a lot of very good players. They caused us as many problems as possible with these long balls and then if you win the second one, they try to get in behind really quickly in one-on-one situations with Zaha. We were there and helped each other to avoid big problems but it was not a brilliant performance from us tonight.
A lot of players can play 70 per cent or 80 per cent better; it would have helped but we worked really hard and that’s absolutely OK. I’m happy with the performance and very happy with the result.”
Klopp also hailed Naby Keita who gave a fine performance yesterday. Klopp said, “He’s very shy and not very extroverted but on the pitch you don’t see it. He needs to settle a little bit. He’s next to Sadio all the time [in training]. Everybody loves Naby but I don’t know if he loves us because he doesn’t speak a lot. But football-wise you can see the potential is outstanding but we have to give him time.
Defensively he’s very stable in his challenges. Tactically he can improve, and he must improve, but what else I don’t know.”
Liverpool next play Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday at home.
