‘On a plate’ - Jurgen Klopp makes ‘unfortunate and ‘surprised’ Liverpool claims after Brighton draw

Jurgen Klopp conceded that Liverpool’s draw against Brighton was a fair result.

The Reds had to settle for a 2-2 stalemate on the south coast despite being in the driving seat for much of the encounter. After Simon Adringa gave the Seaguls the lead, Liverpool hit back to go ahead at half-time. Mo Salah equalised on 40 minutes before putting his side ahead from the penalty spot five minutes later after Dominik Szoboszlai was dragged down inside the area.

Yet with 12 minutes to go, Lewis Dunk earned Brighton a point when he prodded home from a free-kick. And Klopp had no complaints about the result. The Liverpool boss said: “I think unfortunately, yes. One-nil, served on a plate, but similar situation [for us]; we forced them to make similar mistakes around our goals. Two-one up is a good result for half-time here because it is a really good team and it is difficult to defend them all the time. We wanted to do high pressing, it was the right thing to do, but in the same moment it caused the issue that they play out from time to time, we don't win the ball and then the pitch is really big and [we are] chasing back. They do that well.

“I think it is clear in the second half we should have scored for 3-1, there were one or two really good opportunities but because we don't score there, we keep the game open and in this area where the free-kick happened we produced too many set-pieces, corners and especially free-kicks. I saw it back and if one of our boys touched the ball I think it was an own goal. That's what a set-piece it was. Then Dunk was there and could score from there. It was intense for both teams, so I think it's the right result in the end.”

Liverpool were well below their best in the first half, with plenty of their players struggling to find rhythm. However, Klopp wasn’t too shocked that the the Reds were ahead at the interval. He added: “Not surprised. I saw more surprising things in football. The thing is, I know how it looked and I accept that 100 per cent, some things I didn't like, but you could hear in the stadium how often we were really close to winning the ball. That's the risk they take. If you win the ball early, that's the risk we took as well, they take it to play out and we take it to try to win the ball high up. If you are then outplayed and that's the problem then it looks not cool because then you are outplayed and the pitch is really big and they do well with that.

“We kept going and that's why I think really we deserved the resilience we showed there and the stubbornness we showed in that moment. OK, let's go for it, and around this we won another ball where we could have scored with so, no, I was not surprised, to be honest. I know some moments they had the upper hand, but that's it and I really think if we had scored the third one, we would have deserved to win; definitely. But I guess it was like it was.”