Liverpool news: Luis Diaz is an outstanding talent, says Jurgen Klopp

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was a happy man to see his side dish out a hard-fought victory over Norwich City in the Premier League. To many people’s surprise, the Reds fell behind in the 48th minute of Saturday’s Premier League clash at Anfield after Milot Rashica scored through a deflection. A change in formation played a big part in the home side’s comeback. Goals from Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah – his 150th for the Reds – and Luis Diaz – a first for the club – helped Liverpool secure all three points. After the match, Klopp spoke about the importance of how a system change helped them win the match.

Klopp also went on to praise new January signing Luis Diaz and spoke about what that goal will do for Diaz. “We saw now two games when Luis played – came on or played – where he was absolutely incredible. Today it was hard work for him as well, it was a tricky one, a tricky encounter. So then staying on the pitch, staying in the game shows then the real quality because we changed system and brought Luis in the centre and Sadio in his natural position. Sadio scored anyway in the centre but Luis makes this wonderful run in the centre as well. It’s good, he’s just an outstanding talent, a really, really good player. I think he is very happy tonight. He should be, Klopp at the post-match press conference said.

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They were actually always good: Klopp

Asked about his assessment of the game and a ‘complicated afternoon’, Klopp explained, “Yeah, but no problem with that. It was complicated before already. You can see, just as an example, you make an analysis of an opponent and of course you use as well the last game they played and some other games, and you see some things which you want to use and then during the game you realise they analysed their own game as well and changed that completely. Then you have to find other ways, that’s how it is. We could have scored really early in the game with two massive chances from Kostas and the other one was the header from Virgil when he squared the ball and I thought there were two players from us who could have finished it off, I don’t know why we didn’t do that.”

He added: “Then, you don’t score, they find a little better in the game; they were actually always good, to be honest. It is a really good football team. Dean is obviously doing an incredible job – very talented, very brave, very confident and all these kind of things, in the situation they are, really good. But half-time, it was not that we said we had to change this, this and this. Actually, we showed one longer sequence where we played exactly like we should have played all the time. We just should have done it more often. We tried that in the second half obviously but then we concede that goal and you could see directly a few minutes after, it was now a bit hectic, the atmosphere was hectic, everyone got a bit nervous.

“We thought it made sense to make that early change just to calm it directly down again. We did that literally obviously, with Thiago and a system change to 4-4-2. Then anyway you have to finish the situations off. The first goal obviously was not the biggest chance we had in the game, Sadio just scored off it with an incredible finish. And the other goals were really beautiful as well. Yes, it was complicated, no problem with that. It’s Premier League, you can see what kind of quality all the teams have. But that makes it so special when you win them then anyway.”