Ater Luis Diaz opened the scoring, a double from Cody Gakpo and a second-half penalty by Mohamed Salah helped the Anfield outfit register a resounding victory.
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Liverpool were at the top of their game, as they eased past LASK in a crucial group stage fixture on Thursday night. The 4-0 triumph helped the Reds win Group E and book an automatic place in the round-of-16 stage. Ater Luis Diaz opened the scoring, a double from Cody Gakpo and a second-half penalty by Mohamed Salah helped the Anfield outfit register a resounding victory. Toulouse’s draw against Union SG in the other game also worked in the Reds’ favour.
After the match, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was understandably happy with the job done by his players. He also reserved special praise for young centre-back Jarell Quansah. “Look, for us that’s absolutely perfect. Jarell played a super game. But, by the way, the last line tonight, starting from the right… Joey, top, top, top; Ibou, top. That we took him off was a medical decision. No risks, stuff like this, give him minutes but not too long and Jarell played a super game, that’s true. That couldn’t be better news for the club, to be honest,” Klopp, quoted on the club’s website, said after the match.
He added: “I think before this season a lot of people told us we should buy a centre-half. We knew we had Jarell. Did we know that he will show up like this? No, not exactly, but we were pretty hopeful, so the future is bright. It’s cool. Our own boy, calm on the ball, good in the challenge, quick, ruthless in the right moments and besides Caoimhin, who had one or two saves, [he] probably had the most spectacular defensive situations when he saved our backside in some moments. So, that’s really good. [It’s] top news for us.”
Analysing the game, the manager found plenty of positives with Liverpool’s performance against LASK, however, there was also one thing he did not like about the game. “Two top results for us tonight in the group. It was clear, with the defeat at Toulouse we made it a bit more tricky, but because of our result and their result [tonight] we are now top of the table and that will not change. That’s good, very important in the busy, busy, busy schedule we have from now on. [There were] a lot of positives in the game, a lot of good football. The thing I didn’t like too much, and told the boys at half-time, [was] this game should have been put to bed already at half-time,” Klopp stated.
He added: “A third, fourth, fifth goal… you cannot play better, you cannot set it up better, [but] you can finish it better obviously, but we didn’t. So, what was it? Fifty-something [minutes] when we scored the third? That’s then very helpful as well. We made changes and lost a bit of rhythm. Then you see immediately, if you don’t play, you will not stay in charge of the game. If you lose balls in the wrong moment, LASK was there, had chances, Caoimhin worked for his clean sheet, which he desperately wanted, and that’s good. Scored a fourth goal in the last minute or whatever, so result top, performance really good [and] nobody got injured. All good.”
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