The “freak” 7-1 thrashing of Rangers represents a comprehensive mood changer for Liverpool, according to Jurgen Klopp,, with the result all all but ensuring the club’s qualification to the Champions League knockout stages. The Liverpool manager also praised the “special” hat-trick hero Mo Salah.
Liverpool’s first away win of a difficult season has given them a boost before the Premier League visit of Manchester City to Anfield on Sunday. Roberto Firmino scored two and then set up the third for Darwin Nunez before Salah, on as a second-half substitute, struck a six-minute hat‑trick – the fastest in Champions League history. Harvey Elliott added the seventh.
“It changes the mood, definitely,” Klopp said. “It is completely different. We usually drink a beer after away games, but it is that long [since we won away] that I will probably be drunk after one. We all know who we are welcoming on Sunday and this will be a different game. But it’s better to go into the game feeling like we do tonight.
“Mo Salah? Special. Very important, the whole thing was. I can’t think of one player who didn’t have a good game. It is a freak result and we don’t make more of it than we should but it’s the best we could have asked for. I couldn’t see Mo celebrating because he was always running in the corner but you could see with Darwin that it meant the world to him. The relief is big.
Klopp said the result was a boost for his team heading into the match against City on Sunday. “I am always ready for a change in the right direction but we will see,” the manager said. “The best football team in the world right now is coming to Anfield on Sunday. It’s not that we come with a big mouth and say: ‘We are waiting.’ This was for different reasons incredibly important for us.
“We had a really positive half-time talk. We showed the boys which spaces we could play in. In the end we needed to get clearer in the final third, which obviously worked out.”
“All the effort is paying off. We all know when it is running for Mo he is absolutely exceptional. I hope for him everything works for him from now on, like I hope it does for us.”
'I have to process this'
This was the Rangers’ heaviest ever home defeat and joint worst loss, equalling the League Cup final defeat by Celtic at Hampden Park in 1957. The Scottish side are bottom of Group A with no points from four fixtures having succumbed to 4-0, 3-0, 2-0 and now 7-1 scores. Manager Giovanni Van Bronckhorst was at a loss to explain the late collapse after seeing his team take a lead early on.
“The first half and the last half an hour was night and day, comparing how we played and that difference in level in the Champions League is too much,” he said. “The first hour we were there and we can make it difficult for many opponent at Ibrox but the way we played the last 25 minutes, you will lose against any team we play here.
“I cannot explain. I have to process this, I cannot explain at the moment. We need to solve it. We need to find a way to make sure that those moments within games will not happen again. We have had a couple of big defeats already this season.”