Jurgen Klopp reacts to his Liverpool side’s 3-1 win at LASK in their opening Europa League game
Jurgen Klopp admits he had to convince his Liverpool players they were performing better than they thought as they eventually eased to opening Europa League success.
Second-half goals from Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz and substitute Mohamed Salah earned the Reds a 3-1 win at LASK in Austria on Thursday evening.
Liverpool had dominated the first half but struggled to fashion real chances and were behind at the break though Florian Flecker’s well-worked opener.
And Klopp has revealed the advice he and his coaching staff gave his squad that prompted another transformation, with the Reds having come from behind for the fourth time in an ongoing run of five successive victories.
“It was a tough start, yes,” said the Liverpool boss. “Obviously LASK had in the first half one shot on target and it was after a set-piece. We had very good moments but I saw the boys didn’t feel that. It was not that we could gain confidence from our good moments – we didn’t seem to think we should do that again.
“So we suffered from the less good moments, confidence-wise, concentration, frustration grew. It makes no sense. Human, but it makes no sense anyway.
“And so that was – we showed them (at half-time) two football situations from the first half where we did pretty well. The boys clearly thought there was nothing good in the first half but that was not true.
“So we showed them the good moments, then we told them they had to get rid of the frustration getting back into the game again, and then we would have a good chance to turn it around, and that’s what we did eventually.”
Klopp added: “I’m really, really happy because I said before I knew it would be really difficult, and it was difficult, even if people didn’t believe me. Well deserved win in the end and that’s it.”
Liverpool already have a lead at the top of Group E with Thursday’s other game between Union Saint-Gilloise of Belgium and France’s Toulouse ended in a 1-1 draw.
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