The Brazilian played a key role in helping Liverpool to an impressive 4-1 victory over Manchester City on Saturday night but failed to complete the full ninety minutes after limping off during the closing stages of the game with an apparent hamstring problem.
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Both Sagna and Mangala were highly culpable in an error-strewn defensive display for City, the latter opening the scoring with an own goal as Liverpool’s irresistible attacking play saw them race into a 3-0 lead after 33 minutes.
“We’ve been through a lot already this season – we’ve had good results, poor results and a manager change”.
“You shouldn’t make a bigger point out of it than it is”, said Klopp at his pre-match press conference ahead of Thursday’s Europa League tie against struggling Ligue 1 side Bordeaux.
“It’s not easy to come here and play like that against City because they have so many great players, but I think we showed on the pitch what we are able to do and how good we can be”.
“We know that is where we need to do better and we are more than capable of that”. Liverpool may have looked better on the road so far under him, but they’ve improved at home, too.
“It’s only okay that you ask this (about top four) if you ask it as well after Crystal Palace”.
“We will just take it one game at a time. [On Saturday] we made the first three, I think, had more then, and didn’t take all of them”.
He added: “What we have to develop in the first case is our performance”.
At least away from home, there is growing evidence that Jurgen Klopp is really making his mark in the Premier League. “We couldn’t be sure that we would start with the biggest confidence after what happened against Palace but now have more and more confidence in the squad”, he said with his trademark smile before reminding his charges that there were opportunities that went begging.
On Saturday the game flowed perfectly into their hands with an early goal, coupled with woeful City defending, allowing them to pick City off on the counter-attack. We have to learn how to handle this.
Pellegrini has insisted the Citizens quickly forget about the game and turn their attention to Wednesday’s Champions League tie away at Juventus.
“It’ll be important going into the weekend against Swansea”.
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“We can’t change our targets every two weeks just because we have won”, Klopp told LiverpoolFC.com.
