Klopp explains Liverpool’s problem against Man Utd

Mark Holmes
Jurgen Klopp: Happy with Roberto Firmino's performance

Jurgen Klopp: Happy with Roberto Firmino's performance

Jurgen Klopp says Roberto Firmino was the “smallest” of all Liverpool’s problems against Manchester United on Sunday.

Having scored twice against Arsenal, Firmino was once again picked ahead of Christian Benteke to lead the line for Liverpool against United, but this time the move failed to pay off as the Reds managed only four shots on tarhet.

Klopp was happy with Firmino’s performance, however, and felt a bigger problem was his side’s choice of pass in the final third.

“I think the smallest of all our problems that we had today was our centre-forward. Roberto Firmino again made a good game, said Klopp.

“He can play this position, he is a real centre-forward when he plays there. I don’t know who you would compare him with, but we had no problem in this position.

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“We created our chances and it’s too easy to say if we would have had a different player in this position he would have scored. We made a decision for this line-up and that’s not a problem in this moment.

“I have not the best place in the stadium to talk too much about finishing – I’ll have to watch the game again.

“I know we didn’t score a goal, but I could not say whether De Gea touched the ball or not, it’s not always possible from my position. He’s man of the match, right? So I think he had a few good moments and that’s how it is.

“To be honest, I don’t care too much about the situations we had [where] De Gea could [make a save], I think more about the situations where we could have had chances and we didn’t because this move, this pass [was wrong].

“We had a lot of these situations in the first half and the second half, so we had our chances but we could have had more if we would have done this better.

“Altogether, he had a few good saves, we had some not-that-good finishes and they had one good finish – 1-0.”