Jurgen Klopp pays huge compliment to Leeds United and reveals failed Whites 'weak part' plan

Leeds headed for Saturday night’s Premier League clash at Anfield having failed to win any of their last eight league games, six of which had ended in defeat. A haul of just two points from a last possible 24 left the Whites second-bottom approaching kick-off but Jesse Marsch’s side bounced back in brilliant style with a 2-1 triumph against the Reds.

The defeat left Liverpool ninth in the table, only four points above 15th-placed Leeds, and Klopp revealed afterwards that he would have taken a point after seeing his side fall behind after just four minutes against the Whites. The German manager was full of praise for Leeds in his pre-match press conference and there was a similar theme afterwards as Klopp insisted a draw against United would not have been a bad result.

The Reds equalised just ten minutes after Rodrigo’s early opener following Alisson’s slip but both sides had chances to bag the game’s third goal before Crysencio Summerville struck what proved the winner in the 89th minute. Klopp said his side purposely tried to get at Jesse Marsch’s side down the flanks and with a fair degree of success in the first half but, not, in Klopp’s view, after the break.

"It was a good start in the game,” said Klopp at his post match press conference, as quoted by liverpoolfc.com. “I liked it, we played like we should have, high energetic, and then we concede an early, freakish goal – nearly an own-goal. Not helpful, for sure not, but we could equalise off the set-piece and then a normal first half, I would say, with moments, good moments, where we were a bit unlucky, put them under pressure, had a lot of set-pieces I think, corners.

"At half-time, I am telling the boys again where are the areas where we can cause them more problems, how we can adapt positioning-wise because obviously in the centre they were very compact and the wings were the 'weak part', let me say it like this. That's where we created in the first half and where we should have created in the second.

"We put them under pressure, we did that, not free-flowing football but the boys really tried. We had two big chances which we didn’t use so that means the game is still open and then we concede a second goal in the situation where it is obvious you cannot defend it like that. That’s clear.

"We have a two-v-one situation on the wing but no challenge, I think for a second it's even a three-v-one but nobody has a challenge, they pass the ball through and we are outnumbered then but in the end all of a sudden it's a two-v-one in the box and then the ball is in the goal and Leeds win the game. That’s it, pretty much.”

Klopp added: “I would have taken a point tonight – nobody would have been happy about it apart from me – when you see the game, when you concede the first one. Take a point, it’s fine, let’s go from there. My main issue with this game is how we defended the second goal because that was something in between, ‘Oh we have the ball, oh, we don’t have it, we lose it’ but then in the end everybody, until you don’t have the ball, everybody has to defend and we were not all there. There might be an explanation for it which I don’t know yet, but that’s my problem in this moment. But it happened anyway and now we will go again.”