Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp felt his side delivered a “spectacular” result in their 4-3 victory over Arsenal at the Emirates. A win that took the Reds top of the table.
But despite the “brilliant feeling” the Reds boss was critical of his team’s first-half display and said they had shown nowhere near their full quality.
The German hailed the “genius” free-kick of Philippe Coutinho which brought his team back into the game at the end of a fairly wretched first half and confirmed that the injury the Brazilian left the field with was only cramp.
Klopp said: “Scoring four goals is wonderful, but conceding three is the opposite of emotions.
“We didn’t start well in the game. I saw what we spoke about (before the game) but we did it as if 50% convinced of what we had to do.
“We had a high formation but not a compact formation which meant it was much too easy to play football between our rows in the spaces we gave them.
“The formation we gave them was to close spaces and what we did opened spaces. That makes absolutely no sense.
“We needed 45 minutes plus to get the free-kick, a genius shot from Phil.”
The Liverpool manager felt Arsenal’s penalty, Theo Walcott’s effort was saved by Simon Mignolet, should not have been, believing Alberto Moreno played the ball and was delighted to get in level at half-time to change things.
He felt his team’s problems were so obvious that it was easy to change their defensive plans as “the players had already felt it but couldn’t change it in the game”.
He added: “We came out and scored wonderful goals and I made the big mistake of being involved in celebrations. It will happen hopefully one or two times in my life but not so early in the game.
“It was the wrong sign for all of us because it felt for everybody in this moment like ‘that’s it’ but then you look at the watch and you see ‘oh there’s still half an hour to go, that’s not too good’.
“The crowd was a little bit angry obviously and Arsenal fought back, showed character and scored the goals. We defended again not too well and then after the third we were back in the race and were compact again.
“It was pressure but not the highest pressure. It was hard work but a deserved win, it feels brilliant at the moment.”
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