Inter Milan looked to be one of the tougher opponents in the round of 16 redraw following the blunder of the initial draw placing Liverpool against FC Salzburg.
The Italian outlet sit second in Serie A, one point off neighbours AC Milan with a game in hand. They also won the league last season 11 years after their previous title winning campaign beating AC Milan to the top by an impressive 12 points.
During the first leg of this tie Jurgen Klopp's men travelled to northern Italy where they were greeted by a rampant San Siro.
The first half saw both sides battling to open up the scoring but neither could prevail. The Reds looked to break the deadlock with a headed attempt by Sadio Mane, but the Senegalese nodded over from close range following a whipped cross by Andy Roberston from a freekick wide on the left. Hakan Çalhanoğlu looked to reply and came closest for the Nerazzurri smashing the crossbar from a half-volleyed effort from the left.
Inter piled on the pressure in the second half, pinning Liverpool back. Klopp was forced into a triple substitution which would change the tide of the match. Naby Keita, Jordan Henderson and Luis Diaz were all brought onto the pitch and made an instant impact giving the away side control of the game.
From there on it took Liverpool just 15 minutes to break the deadlock. Roberto Firmino, who came on at half time for Diogo Jota, glanced a cross on from an in-swinging Robertson corner at the front post and nestled the ball past Samir Handanović into the bottom left corner.
Mohamed Salah would soon add his name to the scoresheet for his eighth consecutive away goal in the Champions League, another record for the Egyptian. An instinctive goal from the winger who blasted a loose ball in from the just inside the penalty area giving Liverpool a huge advantage going into the next leg at Anfield in a few weeks.
After the match Klopp spoke to the media about his thoughts on the game, as per Liverpoolfc.com.
A defensive masterclass
Liverpool endured a flurry of Inter attacks for large periods during the match. Ivan Perisic proved to be a handful for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Edin Dzeko was a force to be reckoned with for Virgil Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate. The pairing have started together just a handful of times this season with Joel Matip being preferred to the Frenchman for the majority of the season so far. Despite this Liverpool were a brick wall at the back and kept an all important clean sheet in the process.
Klopp was massively impressed by the pairing, he said: "We defended really well, the way you have to defend.
"We like to win the ball early but if that is not possible… and against them it is really not possible because they make the pitch really big, the three centre-backs, they pass a lot of back passes to them and then from there they go diagonal to either Dumfries or Perisic. That makes it really tricky, so you have to defend with passion; organisation helps as well but with passion and I thought defensively it was a really strong performance, but it would be silly if we wouldn't defend well because it means a lot to us this competition and these games, so we invested a lot and it's good."
Set piece specialists
This season Liverpool have shown their aerial dominance not only in defending but in attack as well. So far this season they have scored 14 goals from set pieces, one of which came against Inter last night. Klopp spoke on how they have been practising these all season.
"Pete Krawietz and our analysts are responsible for that [the set pieces.] When we do the analysis, we obviously see how the opponent is defending – everybody is doing that – and we didn't have a lot of time to train, but yes, we trained set-pieces yesterday. That was the only proper thing we did in training; a bit of tactical stuff, but without intensity and set-pieces you cannot train without intensity because one has to shoot and the other guys have to run. So, yes, it's all credit to Pete and his boys."
A debut start for Elliott
Since his return from injury Harvey Elliott as gone from strength to strength, from scoring his first goal at Anfield to making his debut start in the Champions League against Inter. With a full squad at Klopp's disposal it was a quite a shock to see Elliott start but the youngster revealed why he should be in contention to be a regular starter with his performance. Klopp explained his reasoning for starting him last night.
"The reason Harvey played was because we knew which spaces we had to play and it's usually naturally his area, these half-spaces around the midfield three, being very flexible, naturally offensive-minded and all these kind of things. That's why he played. He had really good moments but we all know he can play much better.
"He did the job, he was working incredibly hard and all these kind of things. When you are 18 years old and play against one of the most experienced teams in world football and they are Italian on top of that, for an offensive player it's not a walk in the park. It was a very, very important game for him and very helpful for us as well."
It's only half-time
Liverpool play their second leg at Anfield in three weeks on the 8th March. They have a busy period ahead between then with important Premier League matches and a Carabao Cup final against Chelsea. Klopp shared his thoughts on the rest of the match.
"It is still dangerous. It is half-time and nothing else. That's how it is in the knockout stages, you learn a lot about an opponent. Before, you make the analysis without playing them, and after that you make the analysis with playing them. Both teams know much more about each other. We don't feel like halfway through or whatever, we know it will be a tricky one and we have to be ready for that. I didn't see that we played similar but they played good, they played different to us. There were a lot of different things but they are good, really good, so that's why half-time, 2-0 up. If it is a proper half-time like today and we are 2-0 up at half-time, I don't tell the boys, 'Job done, put your legs on the table', it is a very tricky result so why should we think differently about it now?"