Jürgen Klopp took pride from the fight his Liverpool team showed in coming from behind to beat Stoke City and preventing their Champions League hopes from taking another bruising.
A late equaliser at home to Bournemouth in mid-week denied the Reds the chance to capitalise on the setbacks of their top-four rivals.
And Liverpool looked set for another damaging blow on Saturday, trailing 1-0 at half-time after a desperately lacklustre first-half in which they failed to muster a single shot on target.
But the half-time introductions of Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino, neither considered fit enough to start, transformed the visitors' fortunes and the pair struck twice in two second-half minutes to help claim a monumental win at the bet365 Stadium.
"I appreciate that the boys really fight for each point"
Klopp, speaking afterwards, told journalists: "The difference could not be bigger between 2-1 winning and 2-2 at home.
"In the last game against Bournemouth, it was pretty similar; 1-0 down, 2-1 up. [That game ended] 2-2, that's the big difference.
"We don't have the most comfortable situation in this moment, it's not like we fly or something because of results we've had and we could always use the last game to get more confident.
"No, we had really to work, that's the situation. I really appreciate that the boys really fight for each point. It's not about being genius.
"We have a few players out, a few players missing here, ill there, a few players a little bit injured here. It's really difficult and nobody waits for us.
"It's not like anybody says 'Okay come on, let's play a week later then it's better' so that's why it's so important for us. I only want to see that we fight to be in the Champions League at the end of the season."
Klopp: We weren't as good as we can be, but we were better than mid-week
The Reds boss feels that his side used the disappointment of their inability to see out victory against Bournemouth in their turnaround at Stoke.
"We did already better, after being 2-1 up, in the last game. So we used already the experience a little bit," he continued.
"We didn't play these long balls without target, one or two of them were there because that's how it is, we changed Divock [Origi] and Daniel [Sturridge]. Long balls off Daniel makes no real sense then.
"I'm pretty sure people thought 'why go striker for striker when you're 1-0 down?', but we played really well in this moment and we could only play well with our half-ill, half-fit boys because they were really well protected.
"We bring in a second striker we give them immediately the opportunity to counter-attack and all that stuff so that's why we changed striker for striker, plus Phil and Roberto, plus Gini [Wijnaldum] and all that stuff, it worked well.
"We did better. We kept the ball, played smart, not as good as possible but better than last week and so, all good."
Reds boss unconcerned by criticism
Klopp also accepted that he will inevitably face criticism for his decision to bench Coutinho and Firmino, though he declared that due to illness and fatigue respectively he had no other choice.
He added: "If people give all information we have before a game saying we why we do things that would make things probably easier but it's not possible because we still would use them in the wrong way.
"My life is making decisions and some of them are good. After the game you can see obviously it worked, but if we lose the game 1-0 the whole world probably would have said 'what have you done?'
"But I had no other choice with Roberto and Phil so I could start them or one of them but after half-an-hour it was really likely that we would have to do it [sub them off].
"You could see that in the second-half. It was not 'my god', yeah the first half-an-hour you think 'why are they out?' and then you can see immediately 'yeah okay, maybe because of this reason'. It's all good. You can write what you want, I don't read it."