Jurgen Klopp hailed how Liverpool came through adversity to earn victory over Southampton and keep their quadruple dreams alive.
A 3-0 win ensured the Reds moved into the FA Cup quarter-finals where they will face bitter rivals Manchester United. But the scoreline hardly reflected the game against the Championship Saints at Anfield.
Liverpool were without 14 players, including key men Mo Salah, Darwin Nunez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Diogo Jota and Alisson Becker. After the fledgling talents helped Klopp’s men prevail in the Carabao Cup final over Chelsea at Wembley, they had to play an even more prominent role.
Bobby Clark and James McConnell, who came off the bench against Chelsea, started while 18-year-old forward Lewis Koumas was handed a debut. The Reds rode their luck in the early stages, with Southampton missing several early chances – mainly because of home goalkeeper Caoimin Kelleher’s heroics.
Liverpool then found their way into the encounter and Koumas bagged a minute before half-time in what proved to be a dream maiden appearance. Then after the interval fellow 18-year-old Jayden Danns plundered a double.
Given the Reds played 120 minutes of Chelsea, Klopp was left in awe of how Harvey Elliott and Cody Gakpo stepped up again. And Klopp toasted another ‘special’ evening. The Anfield boss said: “To win the game against a Southampton team who we would have had problems with anyway, but in our specific situation it was absolutely clear… we tried to give as much information, but not too much because of the characteristics of the team, of the line-up, to them.
We had to improve during the game. So, I would say the last line is a settled last line – the goalie, Caoimh [Kelleher], we know how good he is, but then Joey [Gomez] on No.6, two 19-year-olds on No.8, an 18-year-old on the left wing and then Cody [Gakpo] and Harvey [Elliott], who in other circumstances would never have played. Harvey played 120 minutes a few days ago! So, what these two boys did there is absolutely incredible.
“The first 15 minutes, I don’t know exactly, we were all over the place. We tried to press because the boys know I want them to press, just the timing was horrendous. Southampton used that, Southampton had momentum, Southampton had big chances, Caomih had to make saves, but step by step we found a way into the game. High press got better, midfield press not that early – for the midfield press I think we needed the half-time more, a little bit of luck and good defending in the last line. That’s fine.
Then obviously the goal we scored was nearly in the perfect moment. You need to ask Russell [Martin], the Southampton manager, but I think it felt a little bit like momentum changed. So, they had it, obviously, and we got a little bit of a foot into the game and then we scored this wonderful goal, which was an exceptional finish of Lewis.
“So, an 18-year-old boy playing on the left wing against a senior player in a team with not a lot of patterns, let me say it like that, is tricky. But staying in the game for these moments just shows he is a real striker because the goal is exceptional, the step in and then he shoots before the goalie can really settle and stuff like this. A really good finish. We could adjust at half-time and then second half, the midfield press was much better, that helped, and we had now the momentum rather than Southampton. We won a lot of high balls and scored wonderful goals. The play was special, where we won the balls was special, everything was then special. Then obviously something like that, as impossible as it seems, can happen.”
