Jurgen Klopp wants Liverpool to go ‘as far as possible’ in the Europa League after beating LASK to secure their place in the knockout stages.
Liverpool thrashed the Austrian outfit 4-0 at Anfield in a comfortable performance from Klopp’s side, who raced into a two-goal lead inside 15 minutes through Luis Diaz’s header and Cody Gakpo’s close range effort.
Mohamed Salah made it three for the home side from the penalty spot six minutes after half-time, before Gakpo wrapped up the win in stoppage time with a well-struck second.
A goalless draw between Toulouse and Union Saint-Gilloise means Liverpool have topped the group with a game to spare.
“Two top results for us in the group. It was clear, with the defeat at Toulouse we made it a bit more tricky, but because of our result and their result [tonight] we are now top of the table and that will not change. That’s good, very important in the busy, busy, busy schedule we have from now on,” Klopp said, as per the club’s official website.
“[There were] a lot of positives in the game, a lot of good football. The thing I didn’t like too much, and told the boys at half-time, [was] this game should have been put to bed already at half-time. A third, fourth, fifth goal… you cannot play better, you cannot set it up better, [but] you can finish it better obviously, but we didn’t.
So, what was it? Fifty-something [minutes] when we scored the third? That’s then very helpful as well. We made changes and lost a bit of rhythm. Then you see immediately, if you don’t play you will not stay in charge of the game. If you lose balls in the wrong moment, LASK was there, had chances, Caoimhin worked for his clean sheet, which he desperately wanted, and that’s good. Scored a fourth goal in the last minute or whatever, so result top, performance really good [and] nobody got injured. All good.”
On how much he is prioritising the Europa League this season, Klopp added: “What do you mean how much of a priority? In comparison to other competitions or whatever?
“Unfortunately, my career is not like this where I can choose, to be honest. I have to take what I get. When we play the competition it’s the most important competition on the planet. Easy as that. But now we play Premier League on Sunday and so that is then the most important competition, definitely. We want to go as far as somehow possible [in the Europa League].”
