Jurgen Klopp admitted that he’s never seen four goals the calibre of Liverpool’s in one game following the victory over Fulham.
The Reds earned a pulsating 4-3 triumph at Anfield to continue their perfect record at Anfield this season. Trent Alexander-Arnold appeared to open the scoring from a free-kick although it has been credited as a Bern Leno own goal after the ball ricocheted off the Fulham keeper’s back having hit the crossbar.
Alexis Mac Allister netted a stunning volley for the Reds’ second before Wataru Endo curled home a spectacular finish off the bench in the 87th minute after Liverpool had fallen behind. Then Alexander-Arnold came up with the huge moment to crash home an effort with two minutes remaining.
Certainly, not too many would have predicted seven goals to be scored ahead of kick-off, especially the quality of Liverpool’. Klopp said: “I saw a few games, but I never saw a game with this amount of worldies, to be honest. I mean a competitive game. It was really competitive. Trent’s free-kick, unbelievable.
Macca before the game, you could see his foot is right today. He was really in the shooting… I thought, ‘Wow, you should better try it!’ – he obviously thought the same. Wataru was just so important; he came on and that was really good, really good. Won decisive challenges, super passing, a top goal. And then Trent makes it a brace. Honestly, for whatever reason, I didn’t see that ball go in, I was probably turning in that moment or whatever. I haven’t watched it back, but all of them [were] pretty special.” Midway through the second half, Klopp changed his formation when substituting Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai for Joe Gomez and Cody Gakpo. Alexander-Arnold was moved into midfield, which would reap the rewards.
Asked what the thinking behind Alexander-Arnold’s positional change was, Klopp said: “Again, this game for the six when we were not that compact, I didn’t like. I didn’t like how we defended with the frontline, to be honest, going back. Our defensive press was not outstanding in the first half – that makes it really intense for all midfielders but especially for the six. So we changed position in that moment as well, so we needed the width as well, we needed a wing finally again because that didn’t work out too well. It worked out very often very well but there are days where it’s not happening. When you see that Mo gets on the ball and in the first half it was really good. Then Dom could unlap and then we arrive there in a very important area. But now we had Joey out there, which really helped, and then we had then obviously two midfielders, the double six – we played with Ryan and Trent next to each other. But Joey in possession first going inside and then with the next change staying wide.
So with all the things you try to do in these moments, if it works out it’s because it’s tricky for the opponent as well – they get used to different things. Tom Cairney played pretty much man-marking against Trent in moments. So when he was then just in the middle, that’s why it was really helpful that we had the wing. I’m not sure how many crosses Joey fired in in the end, a few really good balls, and all of sudden they had to adapt again and that didn’t work out for them and that’s why we could win the game. In these moments, not that we played like that, it becomes a bit of chess. You just try to change something to improve yourself but to make it a bit more tricky for the opponent as well, and today it worked out.”
On why Mac Allister came off, Klopp added: “He didn’t create a knock. Is tactical something bad, does it mean he’s not good enough? No, it looked to me that he was running a bit out of gas. We had other players on the bench and that’s why we [brought him off].”
