Jurgen Klopp hailed Liverpool’s record-breakers and urged them to take their calm and clinical finishing into the remainder of the season.
Liverpool blitzed Maribor 7-0 to go top of Group E in the Champions League, after Spartak Moscow stunned Sevilla 5-1 and are in full control of their destiny to reach the knockout phase. It was their first away in the Champions League group stage since November 2009.
The final score ensured Klopp’s team surpassed the achievements of sides in 1964 (Reykjavik), 1976 (Crusaders) and 2001 (FC Haka), who had previously made Liverpool’s biggest away win in Europe 5-0. So dominant were Liverpool, though, they could have easily amassed double figures.
It was the kind of display Klopp believed had been coming and after so many weeks of frustration, lamenting how points have been squandered with missed chances, he hopes this will prove to be a turning point.
Asked for his assessment of the performance, Klopp said: ‘Good! Or even better. From first second it was exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to show the best counter pressing in the last few weeks – I really thought that protecting our offensive movements were really good but we could have done better in counter pressing – and tonight was really good. A few of the goals came from counter-pressing situations.
‘How we finished these situations was good too, we were cool enough. Often this season we have been alone in the box and not relaxed enough to play the right pass but tonight was different.
‘We showed how good we can be and we never gave up. It was a good all-round performance. It has to be to win 7-0 of course.’
On setting a record score, Klopp added: ‘It will give the players a lot of confidence. I was told about the record after the game and I didn’t know about it. The wonderful history of this club can feel like a back-pack at times so it is nice to write our own good piece of the history.
‘It will be difficult to beat that record. It is quite rare to win 7-0 but it showed we did unbelievably well. Maribor were quite confident before the game for different reasons. We could read the papers over here because my assistant speaks the language and he said they were positive because no English team had won in Maribor (in the Champions League).’
Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Philippe Coutinho shared five goals between them, while Trent Alexander-Arnold completed the rout but the history making goal was plundered by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Klopp is aware of how big a moment it was for his £35million signing.
‘It will open his chest.,’ said Klopp. ‘It will help him a lot. He could have scored two. It was nice from Daniel how he made this goal, really cool. The performance was very active.
‘The boys deserved that, and we really kept on going. The only problem recently was how to explain why we didn’t win.
‘That has been the most difficult thing about our recent games. When you don’t score it is a challenge to stay confident but we will try to use this result now.
The next game is Tottenham so it’s pretty likely it will not be a similar result. We have five days to recover and prepare and we are looking forward to it,’ Klopp added.
