Alisson was caught out with the ball at his feet to allow Leicester to score © AFP / Adrian DENNIS
Leicester, United Kingdom, Sep 1 – Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said he expected a blunder from new £65 million goalkeeper Alisson Becker, but hopes the Brazilian number one and the rest of his side learned their lesson in winning 2-1 at Leicester on Saturday.
Klopp’s men moved to the top of the Premier League with a perfect record of four wins from four games thanks to first-half goals from Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.
However, the visitors gave Leicester hope when Alisson was caught trying to dribble past Kelechi Iheanacho and the Nigerian squared for Rachid Ghezzal to score the first goal Liverpool have conceded this season.
Klopp warned after last weekend’s 1-0 win over Brighton that he wasn’t happy with some of Alisson’s risk taking when trying to play out from the back.
“We all have to learn from that, not just him. It was clear from last week that I thought it would happen. I didn’t think it would happen during the next match but we could have cleared twice the situation before,” said Klopp.
“He knows it was his mistake of course, he’s man enough to accept that. I told him the best game to do it was this one, because we won it. It’s all fine now and we’ve ticked that box as well.
“We don’t need to play all the balls back to Alisson, but he showed how cool he was after that when the crowd was trying to make him nervous.”
Despite a perfect start in terms of points, Liverpool are still to hit the heights they did in the second half of last season in reaching the Champions League final.
However, midfielder James Milner hailed the reds’ new-found ability to grind out results, which will be needed if they are to dethrone champions Manchester City and deliver a first Premier League title to Anfield for 29 years.
“Massive (result). It wasn’t a good performance in most aspects; pressing defending, keeping the ball, it was tough work. Sometimes in the Premier League you have got to win ugly and we did that,” said Milner.
“We are in as good a position as we can be after four games, won them all. But it is a long season, a lot more to improve. I’m pleased with how we have defended, but there is more to come from this team. It is early days, no one has hit top gear.”
