Jürgen Klopp said Liverpool showed signs of rediscovering their true form as his team recorded a first Premier League win of 2023 in the Merseyside derby against Everton.
Mohamed Salah scored his first league goal at Anfield since October while new £35m signing Cody Gakpo converted his first goal for the club in a comfortable defeat of Sean Dyche’s relegation-threatened team. Salah claimed the performance “looks like the old Liverpool” and revealed that captain Jordan Henderson and vice-captain James Milner convened a team meeting last week to discuss the recent poor run. Klopp concurred that his team had produced the ideal response to the 3-0 loss at Wolves last time out.
The Liverpool manager said: “Both goals for both players were really important. The next player who needs a goal like that [Gakpo’s tap-in] is Darwin [Núñez]. Darwin produced an insane run for the first goal and a super pass. It was a very important moment, not conceding from their first chance (when James Tarkowski headed against a post 15 seconds before Salah scored). I’m not sure how much you can force luck but it was nice to get it. It was a really important night. It gave us all the signs that was us tonight, definitely, and now we have to make sure it is us from now on.”
Klopp said his overriding emotion was one of relief following a damaging sequence of four league games without a win. He added: “Relief. That is it. I’m happy with the performance. It was necessary we played the game we wanted to and not the game Everton wanted us to. There were a really high number of set pieces. These set pieces are a massive threat and I thought we dealt with that really well. On top of that we were super-dominant, switched the sides and I loved both goals on the counterattack. We had real options in the box for both goals. A lot of things were different tonight so it was the best game for a while.”
New Everton manager Dyche admitted his players failed to reproduce the quality or intensity that brought victory over Arsenal in his first game in charge. He said: “They had the upper hand in the early stages without opening us up too much. Our shape was good, our covering shape was good and then it changes in 15 seconds. We hit the post and don’t react as quick.
“We know Liverpool are good on the transition phase. We concede a goal without needing to, Jordan [Pickford] has a bit of a misread. The players have taken a lot on board in a short space of time so I am not going to be too critical, but we need to find that balance in and out of possession and then try and turn it into good possession.”
