Goals from Diogo Jota and Sadio Mane helped Liverpool start their home campaign with a comfortable victory in the new Premier League season.
Follow Us
Liverpool could not have hoped for a better start in their first home match in the new Premier League season after beating Burnley 2-0 on Saturday. Goals from Diogo Jota and Sadio Mane helped the Reds get all three points. Diogo Jota’s early glancing header was added to by a clinical Sadio Mane finish in the second half. The Reds treated their stadium’s first capacity crowd since March 2020 to a victory that makes it six points from two Premier League games this season. After the match, Jurgen Klopp expressed his happiness over the “really special” atmosphere of a full-again Anfield on Saturday.
“Everybody was really looking forward to this football festival, to this game, and I think nobody leaves this place today with any kind of disappointment because I think all of our dreams were fulfilled today, atmosphere-wise,” Jurgen Klopp said in his post-match press conference. “That was, for sure, the best 12.30pm atmosphere we had. It was pretty special, really special. How the game was as well, pretty special, because Burnley are Burnley – and Burnley cause you problems. And Burnley caused us problems. Obviously, the new idea about football, let the game flow more or whatever, I think we will talk about that quite frequently over the year, but we won the game.
“We played a good game, we scored two, could have scored more. Yes, needed Ali in moments as well, even when the best save he had was offside before, but it was anyway a sensational save. Harvey was part of this performance. Everybody wants to talk to me about Harvey and I understand absolutely – when an 18-year-old boy plays such a mature game I can understand why everyone was asking, but I was not surprised he played like this. That is exactly how he has trained now for six or seven weeks since we are back, since he is back from loan.”
He also spoke about the role Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip played in thwarting Burnley. “We are not surprised by that because they played together, they are both really good footballers and that’s how it is. I can tell you now already that because of the things that happened during the last year, we needed desperately to bring in the fourth centre-half and now we have six with Rhys and Nat Phillips. We needed that, so they will all play; the first four will definitely play altogether,” Jurgen Klopp added.
“We have to mix it up and we will do that because none of these guys, especially after a long injury, should now then play all the time three games a week. We need to find a way to get used to that, but for this game today there was no chance to change anything from last week because you needed to be used to each other to face this Burnley team. It’s really special, really specific and very aggressive and, as I said, with the new idea – let the game flow – it makes it not easier. It is the situation, it was a tough game, an intense game, how it always is against Burnley. We won it, it was not always like this, but sometimes as well, so let’s just keep going.”
