Jurgen Klopp believes Liverpool's pulsating win over Manchester City was a "nice commercial" for the Premier League as they handed Pep Guardiola's side their first league defeat of the season.

Liverpool beat the league leaders 4-3 at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, with Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah all scoring within the space of nine second-half minutes to put Liverpool 4-1 up.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had put the home side in the lead after nine minutes before Leroy Sane levelled. Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan then netted late on to create a tense finish as City looked to maintain their flawless run in the league, which ended after 30 games unbeaten.

"I'm really, really happy about it," Klopp told his postmatch news conference. "I really respect the quality of the opponent. You can see what they can do. You watch and you see it and you know you have to deny 'this' and 'that' -- all possible, but quite difficult.

"You need [a] really good football team to do that and, thank God, I have one. And that makes sense to try it and they tried really hard today.

"It was just a joy to watch -- how both teams threw everything on the pitch. The wind made it sometimes a little bit tricky here or there.

"It's just a nice commercial for Premier League football, to be honest, and the whole world was watching it. If somebody didn't like football until now then probably they will say: 'Ah that's why you watch it all the time.' I'm really happy about it."

Liverpool did not move away from their unique attacking style for the visit of the City, with Klopp insisting going toe-to-toe with the league leaders is the only realistic approach to adopt in the hope of beating them.

"You have no alternative to beat City," he added. "Yes, you can win the lottery and they tackle each other and then you can stand deep in your box and, in the end, hope nothing happens. That's not really likely.

"And being Liverpool, we should not try this way, to be honest. Then you don't have a lot of alternatives, or no alternatives. You need to be brave and you need to play football."

Meanwhile, Klopp paid tribute to Oxlade-Chamberlain's performance from central midfield as he netted his fourth goal for Liverpool since his summer transfer from Arsenal.

The opportunity of featuring more regularly in the heart of the midfield was one of the reasons why the 24-year-old moved to Anfield, and Klopp admits he is delighted with the way the England international has settled on Merseyside.

"It's so nice to see how much he adapted," the Liverpool manager said. "I had kind of a good idea what kind of guy he is, but if you ask me what is better -- the player or the person -- then I have to think a little about it. He is on a good way. He enjoys it.

"He can still play on the wing, which is, for us, really important. The midfield role was more a dream of him than a reality because he didn't play often -- maybe the youth was the last time. He's on a really good way."

Oxlade-Chamberlain felt Manchester City's tactics played into Liverpool's hands.

"We know they like to play out from the back and they are really good at it, but at the same time we thrive when teams try and do that, it can play into our hands,'' Oxlade-Chamberlain said on Sky Sports.

"Second half when we went on a bit of a rampage for five or 10 minutes that showed.''

He added: "It's a nice statement to make. They've been brilliant all year.

"We knew we had what it took if we were 100 percent at the races to get three points today.''

Klopp also refused to blame Loris Karius' for City's first goal, saying Sane's effort which beat the goalkeeper at his near post was "world class''.

"People always find a hair in the soup and I'm not like this,'' he said. "The Man City goalkeeper made Mo Salah's goal [with an awful clearance], probably nobody will talk about that.''

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by Glenn Price

If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]