Jurgen Klopp praises Curtis Jones and fellow Reds after Liverpool’s ‘uncomfortable’ win over Aston Villa
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has praised his team for their “uncomfortable” 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Sunday.
The newly crowned champions struggled to get going until Sadio Mane gave them the lead at Anfield on 71 minutes, then substitute Curtis Jones added a second goal – his first in the Premier League – in the final moments of the game.
In their previous outing, Liverpool were beaten 4-0 by dethroned Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
“[It was a] very difficult game for different reasons,” Klopp said after the win on Sunday. “Aston Villa were obviously good, organised, made it really tricky for us. They wanted to have counter-attacks, stuff like that.
“The wind made it tricky for both reams, but obviously it was really hard today to play normal football. But we had chances to stay on track and had to do the right things more and more, and especially in the second half we had more of the good moments, when the positioning was slightly better and all that stuff.
“I think two situations could or should have been penalties, or more. We got a penalty [given against us] for arms and stuff like this against Man City, and today you don’t give these penalties, but people do exactly the same. So that’s a bit unlucky, but all the rest I’m completely fine [with].
“We are where we are because we won the difficult games and tonight was again a difficult one, but we won it ... Aston Villa was fighting with all they have, tried to get here and there and attack and maybe finish. And that makes life uncomfortable, I like it. It was not a brilliant performance, but it was a good performance, which earned us three points.”
Club captain Jordan Henderson was benched for Naby Keita, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Divock Origi started in place of regulars Georginio Wijnaldum and Roberto Firmino.
Henderson, Wijnaldum and Firmino all came on after 60 minutes of play, however, and the hosts’ performance quickly improved as a result.
“We made three changes in decisive areas, which was important from a physical point of view,” Klopp said. ”You could see we needed a little bit to get used to it.
“The positioning was better [before the changes], but we just wanted to bring the fresher players in these positions, so you could see for Fabinho it was really hard today. Hendo on No6 and having Naby next to him and Gini slightly higher, plus then Bobby in that really decisive area helped obviously.
“Aston Villa was used to more or less Divock in a position. We wanted him to be higher, we didn’t want him to drop as Bobby [Firmino] usually is doing, so that’s why we changed. During the game already Sadio came in that position, that felt more natural. So these are things we tried. When the three players who play in these positions usually came on that helped of course.”
Klopp was also pleased with the goalscoring cameo of 19-year-old Jones.
“He has a lot of qualities obviously,” the German coach said.
“He comes on, the first situation is the dribbling and the finish, which I like – no lack of confidence. And then the next situation is a cross – with the wind not a perfect cross, but he made it happen that the ball comes inside again.
“Then he’s in a position [to score] in the six-yard box. So that’s exactly his strength, he wants to be there, he wants to be decisive, and that’s really good.
“He deserves the goal, he deserves the appearance and the game. I’m really happy for him.”
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