Stoke City’s Tactics Caused Us Problems – Klopp

Jurgen Klopp says he was pleased with Liverpool’s response and ability to deal with the physicality of Stoke City in the 4-1 win at Anfield on Tuesday evening, but admitted the visitors caused his team problems with their tactics.

Liverpool cut Chelsea’s lead at the top of the Premier League to six points with another dominant attacking performance in front of their own supporters.

The visitors broke the deadlock in the 12th minute through Jonathan Walters’ header before Liverpool took a first-half lead courtesy of goals from Adam Lallana and Roberto Firmino.

Giannelli Imbula put the ball into his own net, while Daniel Sturridge netted his first Premier League goal of the season within seconds of replacing Divock Origi midway through the second half.

“We know about our quality, but we don’t show it all the time,” Klopp told a news conference after the match. “At the start of the game it was really difficult. It was difficult because the plan of Stoke was to press really high with the two strikers, so we were not patient enough in our passing game.

“It was pressure, but we could have done much better. It became a wild game and when they had the ball, for me, the ball was immediately up in the air to [Peter] Crouch. He did good. Honestly, it was really difficult to defend.

“With the second ball, Joe Allen was brilliant in the beginning. We had to work really hard, so the game was really open.

“In the creating of our moments, again we struggle a little bit with our protection with our position game.

“[There were] a lot of things we could have done better, but we forced two goals with our quality.”

Stoke, meanwhile, started at Anfield with Crouch and Walters up front and had chances to extend their lead when 1-0 up.

However, Potters boss Mark Hughes believes mistakes from individuals, ultimately, undermined the effective tactics of the team.

“We caused them problems,” Hughes said. “Obviously with Liverpool they want to pressure, they want to make mistakes in your half, they want to knick balls off you, so the game plan today was to take the press out of the game.

“It’s quite simple, you just stop them having the ability to pressure and you take it out and cause them issues at the other end — and we did.

“I don’t think too many teams come here and play two up top. They didn’t deal with it particularly well, in my view — certainly not in the first half.

“They’ve been fortunate really because of individual errors, we handed them the game. I’m sure a lot of other teams will look at what we did today and maybe try and replicate it.

“They still won the game 4-1, so I’m not going to take too much credit for what we were trying to do.”