Jurgen Klopp could see his Liverpool side line up against Real Madrid or Bayern Munich in the Champions League last four, but he's not interested in drawing comparisons to them just yet. 

The German boss was pleased as punch to see his Liverpool side finish the job off against Manchester City, winning 2-1 at the Etihad thanks to goals from Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino, thus moving into the semi-final stage with a crushing 5-1 aggregate victory.

No comparisons

With Klopp having hailed City as the best team in Europe before the tie, it begged the question as to how his improving Liverpool team stacks up to who's left in the competition, but he wasn't keen on comparing his side with those around them.

“I have no interest in comparing us to Barcelona, Bayern or Real Madrid, they win everything in the past 20 years and in the same time we don’t win much as a club.

You don’t become a winner overnight. We can only develop, this competition is unbelievably strong. You can’t imagine how much intensity you feel before a game like this."

Klopp does seem to be pleased with the development that his side are showing, some new-found resilience shining through as they held off City's first-half charge.

"We mature constantly," said Klopp.

"The boys get more and more used to situations like that, if you could say anything bad about us in the past few months is that on a good day we beat everybody and on an average day we lose goals. It’s all about confidence, being convinced in what you’re doing."

​Tactics tweak

​Part of halting that first half charge was a slight tweak in the tactics, as Klopp shuffled his pack by switching Roberto Firmino the left wing, swapping Sadio Mane across to the right and pushing the lethal Salah into a striking role.

In the first half Mo needed to come in the game a little more, so we made the change," the German explained. 

"The problem was then not Mo, he felt so much under pressure to play one against two constantly. The boys found a solution, we had two or three moments like the one in the last minute [of the half] so it was easy to see the development of the game in the second half as we were already through the whirlwind.

Salah's goal crucial

Salah's equalising goal in the 56th minute effectively killed the tie, meaning City would have had to score four unanswered goals in 34 minutes to go through.

Klopp was asked if he knew that Liverpool were virtually through after Salah's goal, answering defiantly that this scenario wasn't the case.

"No, I didn’t think about it. In half-time we said if we score a goal it will change the atmosphere, that was clearly from the beginning. That’s the best thing with it being 3-0 up, we saw the line-up of City and they took all the risk and it could have worked!

We played better football in the moments we got the ball in the second-half.

I really think they are the best team in the world at the moment, that’s how it is. But I knew we could beat them, it doesn’t make us a better team, it makes it football."