Jurgen Klopp names two Liverpool players who were ‘exceptional’ and another who’s a ‘machine’

Jurgen Klopp heaped praise on his ‘exceptional’ Liverpool centre-back duo after victory over Aston Villa.

The Reds went into the Anfield encounterwith their main defensive pair in Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate because of suspension and injury respectively. That meant that Joe Gomez and Joel Matip lined-up in their place.

And neither player barely put a foot wrong as Liverpool kept their first clean sheet of the 2023-24 Premier League season. They kept a potent Villa attack quiet throughout, with Dominik Szoboszlai, Mo Salah and a Matty Cash own goal earning the Reds all three points.

On Gomez and Matip’s performances, Klopp said: “Both centre-halves played an exceptional game. With different jobs, to be honest. Diaby hiding in midfield on a nine-and-a-half, 10 position. So Joey had to step in there. Leaves Joel in a one-v-one with Ollie Watkins. As much as I love Joel, I think we know that Ollie Watkins might be a bit quicker than Joel and he did that really, really well. The boys in front of them knew about that fact so they were really in the situation in the counter-pressing moments.

“Until the 2-0 it was outstanding, then because of the intensity of the way we played, stuff like this, you could see the front line settled slightly higher. That is human but not helpful in these moments so we didn’t have exactly the same grip. But top performance really.

“And Joey – I’m really pleased for him. Against Newcastle, by the way, it was like that already, to be honest, when he came on. It looked really like that. It’s very helpful when you have strong centre-halves, but if you leave them alone then the pitch is too big to defend. Today we were really together, really compact, the commitment was top-class and that’s why we played the way we played.”

Szoboszlai bagged his first Liverpool goal since joining from RB Leipzig for £60 million. In the third minute, the midfielder’s sweetly-struck half-volley from outside the box arrowed into the far corner.

Szoboszlai has started all of the Reds’ four games since his arrival - and Klopp has been highly impressed so far. The Liverpool manager added: “A machine, huh? That’s now all four games. Pretty impressive, absolutely impressive. Tactically smart, absolutely ready for the dirty part of the game – meaning hard work where it’s not the fancy stuff where they are shooting, crossing, running forward, stuff like this.

“No, he is really closing down opponents. So important how Curt and Dom defended the half-spaces next to Darwin, super-important. And what a goal! I saw it directly from behind. That was the cleanest strike I saw for a long time. And that was his slightly lesser-good foot. That was, again, a top performance.”