There was plenty of Holiday Cheer to go around after Liverpool's well-deserved victory over Aston Villa on Boxing Day. Jürgen Klopp was certainly pleased with his side's performance and gave a glowing assent to the media in his post-match press conference.
“I loved it,” Klopp said of Liverpool's effort and the outcome of the match. “In a difficult game, we played a lot of good stuff. We were not superior in all moments – especially in the start of the second half, Aston Villa was clearly better, we lost rhythm there. When you lose rhythm in an intense game, it is difficult to come back but we found ways to get out of that with massive counter-attacks. We could have scored the third goal much earlier, but I loved the start in the game in general. It was really, really good, exactly what we wanted.”
Klopp also discussed the maturation of Andy Robertson after he set the Premier League record for the most assists by a defender.
“I am not so much into stats, but what came first to my mind was the guy we bought from Hull,” Klopp said. “We knew he was an exceptional talent, but personality [and] character makes you the player you can be. He obviously really had a good basis for that. He was a real talent offensively; defensively he was not that good and I remember when he came into my office after half a year because he didn't play a lot [about] what he has to change… ' Now he obviously [is] a proper defender and still sets up balls. It's a great number and really special.”
With the victory, Liverpool climbs to 6th in the EPL table, but Klopp says he is not overly focused on the standings just yet.
“We have to be the pain in the backside for everybody,” Klopp said “That's how it is. Of course, we have to chase. We are not in the best position, there's [a] difference between us and other teams, we all know that. The first two [or] three are maybe too far away, I don't know, if they win all the games then we have no chance. But we have teams, we are there, they are in the Champions League spots at the moment. We have to do our part, we have to do our part and that means winning football games and we will see how close we can get.”
This is about as happy as Jürgen Klopp has seemed in a post-match presser this season and with good reason. The Reds played a dominant first half and they did not crumble when Aston Villa began to push them in the second half as they have done at some points during the season. As Klopp himself said, one match does not dig Liverpool out of the hole they are in and vault them to the top of the table, but it's a start. Let's hope they can continue to climb.
