Jurgen Klopp praised the impact his substitutes had after Liverpool produced a late fight back to beat Sheffield United and return to the top of the Premier League.
Ivan Grbic’s poor clearance cannoned off the back of Darwin Nunez to put Liverpool ahead but Sheffield United stunned Anfield when Conor Bradley turned in Gustavo Hamer’s header into the box.
Liverpool avoided an unlikely slip in the title race as Alexis Mac Allister’s stunner and Cody Gakpo’s header sent Klopp’s side back to the top.
The Liverpool boss was grateful for the way his substitutes helped turn the tide late in the second half, with Harvey Elliot, Curtis Jones and Gakpo all effective. For the 25th time this season, Liverpool scored in the final 15 minutes of a league game and staged another late comeback to keep their title hopes intact.
Klopp said after the game: “We controlled the game but there are different ways to control again and today was not the right one. Not enough creating. I don’t expect we have chance after chance after chance but you have to accelerate, speed up, underlap and overlap, and that’s what we did [after 60 minutes].
“The game was a difficult one to get rhythm but we should have had a better rhythm than we had. In the end, all good. Probably all the other games are now different, especially the next one.”
“We scored one of my favourite goals ever for 1-0. A striker from time to time needs that kind of thing. I ask [Nunez] quite a lot to press the opponent and it’s pretty rare you get close enough to get this kind of block.
