Jurgen Klopp reveals why he substituted Darwin Nunez at half-time in Liverpool's victory over Sparta Prague

Jurgen Klopp saluted Liverpool for not letting their standards drop as they cruised into the Europa League quarter-finals.

The Reds booked their spot with a second emphatic victory over Sparta Prague in a week. Liverpool earned a 5-1 triumph in the Czech capital to put themselves firmly in command of the last-16 tie. But they did not take their foot off the gas in the reverse meeting at Anfield.

Klopp's troops romped to a 6-1 success - and were four goals to the good after 14 minutes through efforts from Darwin Nunez, Bobby Clark, Mo Salah and Cody Gakpo. After half-time, a Dominik Szoboszlai strike and a second for Gakpo put the gloss on another impressive triumph.

Klopp was afforded the luxury of substituting Nunez and Joe Gomez at the interval, while Virgil van Dijk came on for 24 minutes and Luis Diaz and Alexis Mac Allister were left unused ahead of Sunday's FA Cup quarter-final clash at Manchester United.

Liverpool manager Klopp told reporters: "We spoke about that obviously today in the team meeting and I said, I don’t expect us to lose 5-0 and you get knocked out but it’s a sold-out stadium, everything is prepared for a really good football game. We decide if we get through somehow or if we play a really good game, and there are so many reasons why we should try to play a really good game.

"And then the boys started the game incredibly well. We were really, really after them, at them – however you want to call it – and scored wonderful goals. 4-0 after 14 minutes is really strange, and from that moment on it became a strange game because how can you now stay greedy and these kind of things? In that moment probably everybody thought, ‘OK, we have other games to come’, stuff like this. We tried as well at half-time, changing early. Robbo [Andy Robertson] on centre-half, Joey precaution, Darwin precaution. None of them was necessary to take off, it’s just obviously Sunday is another game so that’s the moment when we started thinking it as well. So when we start thinking like that, the boys think like that as well.

"But still, good game, entertaining. Obviously, we all experienced different atmospheres at Anfield but I’m really happy for all of us, crowd included, that this was not as nerve-wracking as it usually is. Everybody can go home with a normal heart rate and that’s how it should be from time to time. It will not stay like this! Sunday already will be a different game and now we have three days to try to make sure we’re ready for that."