Jurgen Klopp made a beeline for "world class" Alisson Becker after the Liverpool goalkeeper helped the Reds to a hard-fought win at Crystal Palace.
After goals from Virgil van Dijk and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had put the Reds 2-0 up shortly after the half hour mark at Selhurst Park, Odsonne Edouard pulled a goal back for the Eagles.
Either side of that strike the Reds were indebted to Alisson for fine saves to deny both Jean-Philippe Mateta and Michael Olise, before a controversial late penalty from Fabinho sealed the points for the Reds.
Klopp could be seen approaching Alisson at full-time, and he was delighted with the Brazilian's display.
"I said to him just now, 'thank you for saving our backside again!'" said Klopp after the match.
"He said, 'that’s my job'. Of course it is very helpful to have a world-class goalkeeper at the back!"
On the performance as a whole he added: "It was a bit Jekyll and Hyde football today. You could see how good we can be. We were incredible in the first 35 minutes.
"Then after an intense week – away at Arsenal – I don’t have any real explanation but the intensity might be one. We became sloppy in the last line.
"In the second half we were not compact, the first line pressed too high and the distance was not right. We played a high line and did not catch them offside which was our fault of course."
Despite those issues, Liverpool's win sees them narrow the gap to Manchester City at the top of the table to nine points, while they retain a game in hand.
The match also brought an end to Liverpool's brief period without their African stars Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita, with all three still competing at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Liverpool progressed to the final of the League Cup and the FA Cup fourth round without the quartet, while they also registered Premier League wins over Brentford and now Palace, leaving Klopp a happy man.
"We did it without them, but that made it so intense," he said.
"You have to create, if you want, kind of a new football because if you don’t have that maximum speed on the wing, which obviously Sadio and Mo have.
"If you don’t have that all of a sudden you have to change how you get there in these areas.
"And the boys did really well. Ox again on the scoresheet, massive one. Diogo [Jota], not to stop more or less in a lot of situations. Bobby’s [Firmino's] work-rate is second to none.
"The boys really put a proper shift in and I’m more than pleased about that."
