Jurgen Klopp has sung the praises of his side after Liverpool finished top of their Champions League group with two games to spare.
This is despite having their group labelled the “group of death” by many fans when the draw was made in August.
Group of death bring it on 🥵
— ♡𝘧𝘢𝘻𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘯𝘢 (@fazri3na) August 27, 2021
Liverpool secured their passage to the knockout stage with a comfortable 2-0 win over Atletico Madrid at Anfield last night (November 3)
“I couldn’t have expected better when I saw the draw,” Klopp said afterwards.
Liverpool still have group games against FC Porto (home) and AC Milan (away) to play before the knockout stages in February.
“To win it now is pretty special,” Klopp added. “We have two games to go and we will try everything to win those, too.”
The game against Atletico swung in favour of the Reds when Dutch referee Danny Makkeile showed Brazilian defender Felipe a straight red card.
It looked a soft decision on the night after the Atletico man clipped the heels of Sadio Mane to stop a counter-attack.
Klopp thinks the sending off was justified.
“I didn’t see it to be a red card, for me it was a yellow card.
“I saw it back and you see that the foot is high and he catches [Mane] on the achilles.
“Do I want the other team to go one man down? Not at all.
“We were the better team against 11.
“But with the intense schedule that we have, it was really important that we controlled the game after that.”
Klopp took Mane off at half-time to not risk the Senegalese winger getting himself a sending off.
Mane had received a yellow card earlier in the game.
“Taking Sadio off was the right thing to do,” Klopp said.
“I hated it more than you can imagine.
“I was not worried that Sadio can’t handle his emotions.
“We all saw what some Madrid players did to try and equal the number of players again.”
Liverpool host Porto at Anfield in three weeks’ time.
Then it’s a trip to the San Siro to round out the group campaign away at AC Milan.
