Inter might have won the second leg 1-0 but it was Liverpool that progressed into the quarterfinals, thanks to a 2-1 aggregate.
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Liverpool booked their place in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, but it was not a straight forward affair, as they had to dig deep to get past a resilient Inter Milan side. Jurgen Klopp’s side were heading into the second leg with a comfortable 2-0 lead after managing an impressive result in the first leg in Italy. However, the Serie A champions gave a major scare to the home side on Tuesday night at Anfield. Simone Inzaghi’s men might have won the second leg 1-0 but it was Liverpool that progressed into the final eight of the tournament, thanks to a 2-1 aggregate. After the match, Mohamed Salah, who struck the woodwork twice, felt that securing a quarter-final ticket was the most important aspect from the match.
“It was a tough game – they were very good in the away game. We struggled at the start, but the most important thing is that we have qualified,” Salah told BT Sport. “I hit the post twice, it’s OK – maybe next game I will score three! I don’t mind so much when the team qualify. That is the most important thing, for sure.
“This is a good game to learn from, it’s always important to win but sometimes, like tonight, you hit the post twice and you miss chances, it can happen. The good thing is that it is not in the league, and we have qualified. That is great.”
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The defeat meant that Liverpool’s 12-game winning streak has come to an end. Asked about what could be taken from the loss, Salah said, “Maybe we need to start from the beginning, winning games. We lost the game, maybe that gives us a little bit of a push that maybe in the back of our mind we are a little overconfident at the moment. I think it’s a good game to learn from it and carry on.”
He added, “Everybody wants to win the Champions League and the Premier League, for sure. We’re going to fight for both, let’s see.”
Meanwhile, manager Jurgen Klopp gave his own verdict on the game and believed that Liverpool deserved to qualify over the two legs. “Pete Krawietz always says the art of football is to lose the right games. I still hate it but if there was any kind of game we could have afforded to lose, it was tonight because the main target obviously of this competition is to get through. But it’s not that I’m here like over the moon. I’m really happy that we went through because obviously when we saw the draw in the first place it was like, ‘OK, that’s a tough one’,” Klopp said in his post-match press conference.
“So we went through and I think over the two legs we deserved it. That’s fine. That we had some problems in the game tonight was [for] different reasons, one is the quality of the opponent – they are a really good football team. And their set-up – we know that in the league a little bit from Leeds under Bielsa – just with much more quality and that makes it really tricky to play against them. But we still had our chances and didn’t score.”
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