Jurgen Klopp pleased with Liverpool resolve in victory at Brighton

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp was pleased with how his side handled Brighton’s fightback during the 3-1 victory at the Amex Stadium.

Mohamed Salah and Jordan Henderson struck in the first eight minutes before Brighton responded and halved the deficit on the stroke of half-time through Leandro Trossard.

But Salah sealed the game 14 minutes from time, heading in from a corner, to secure the Reds their 30th Premier League win of the season.

Klopp told Sky Sports: “We don’t have any influence on what the other team is doing. We have to react and we had a super solution. I liked how we did it.

“They left two offensive players between the lines. When they won the ball, then it was difficult to protect that, and they did create well in most of the situations.

“But when you lose the ball at the wrong moment, then they have an advantage and that’s why they had the two chances and that’s why they scored the goal as well.

“I would say they deserved that goal, but we scored then the third one and could have scored again, more really big chances. But all good.”

Salah praised Brighton for fighting back and was glad to have killed the game off with his second goal.

He said: “It was a good game for fans to watch. They [Brighton] play really well from the back and they had a good game.

“We scored two at the beginning, so it made the game a little bit easier to just have the confidence from the beginning, but they played a good game.

“After 2-1, they had more confidence and they tried to play more football. They were really good.

“They were close to scoring the second as well, so after I scored the third one, it made the game calm again and we had more confidence that the game was almost over.”

Salah’s brace took him to 19 league goals for the campaign, three behind leading goalscorer Jamie Vardy, but he was coy when asked about his chances of claiming the Golden Boot.

“Let’s take it game by game,” he said with a smile.

Brighton boss Graham Potter was pleased with much of what he saw from his players, but admitted there were lessons to be learned.

He said: “I think we played well. Over the course of the game, we gave a really good account of ourselves, good personality, especially going 2-0 down in the manner we did.

“Liverpool really smelled blood, if you like, because we gifted them a couple of goals, so great personality to drag ourselves back into the game, and then we created some chances before we scored a really good goal.

“We put a lot into that game and there are a lot of positives for us, of course things that we need to learn from as well – which is normal – but I’m pleased with a lot that we did.

“But again, we have to improve as well, and that includes myself.”