Jurgen Klopp names Liverpool player who dropped best ever performance and trio who were 'really good'

Jurgen Klopp hailed the performance of Curtis Jones after Liverpool's Carabao Cup victory over West Ham United.

The midfielder fired a double in the Reds' 5-1 triumph at Anfield to move into the semi-finals of the competition. Jones notched Liverpool's second goal with a clever finish in the 56th minute before rounding off the rout in the 84th minute with an outstanding individual goal.

The academy product enjoyed a strong start to the 2023-24 season, having featured in the final nine games of last term. However, a red card against Tottenham Hotspur followed by an injury has limited Jones' minutes in the Premier League of late.

Klopp believes that the 22-year-old's display against West Ham was 'even better' than the form he's previously shown having added acceleration when in possession. The Liverpool manager said: "He did even better to be honest, because he added in his game the acceleration with the ball, which is really important. You cannot do that against each opponent, but there are some opponents where you can do it, when you pass the first line then you have to go with the ball. His second goal is now a crazy goal because you go pretty much towards the penalty spot from where he scored, that's pretty rare, but it's an important thing for him to do. Yes, it was a really good game. He looked super-fresh, which is probably not surprising because he didn't now play thousands of minutes in recent weeks. In general, the performance was just good."

Klopp made six changes for the visit of West Ham from last weekend's 0-0 draw against Manchester United. Liverpool dominated throughout, with Dominik Szoboszlai opening the scoring in the first half while Cody Gakpo and substitute Mo Salah were also on target in the second period.

Klopp was left impressed by the efforts Harvey Elliott, who replaced Salah in a right-wing role and operated differently to the Egyptian. He added: "Harvey, thankfully, interpreted the role as the right-winger completely different to Mo, which is important because nobody should play it like Mo. If Mo is not there we have to play to our skillset and that's what Harvey did. It was top. Dom looked really, really good. Wataru [Endo] looked really good. That's the engine room of the team in midfield and these boys are defensively and offensively cheeky. Then you have Cody, really good game, and Darwin [Nunez] is this threat for in behind. A bit unlucky again with the post but besides that a really good game and then the last line, that was a tricky game.

"We all know because our pressing was pretty good and they have long balls as well and how we defended the first was maybe not that surprising with the boys we had there, but then the second ball was just really good. We were ready for these hectic moments, ball in the air, bring it down and then from there we can play. That was all good, what can I say? That was really good tonight, I am really happy about that. The boys we brought on made an impact, really good. We could change early, which is helpful as well. Now we recover and go again."