Second-half substitutes help Liverpool stun champions Man City in pre-season friendly in New Jersey
Thursday 26 July 2018 09:44, UK
Jurgen Klopp said there was "a lot of good moments and a lot of bad moments" as a Sadio Mane stoppage-time penalty helped Liverpool to a 2-1 win over Manchester City.
Leroy Sane broke the deadlock at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on 57 minutes, but Mohamed Salah buried a header less than a minute after coming on to draw things level.
Neither Salah nor match-winner Sane were expected to feature in the clash, but the latter showed his worth rolling a pressure spot-kick past Joe Hart in the closing stages.
Klopp was quoted on the Liverpoolfc.com site as saying: "The game for us was very important, but it is not a sign in the direction or whatever.
"It's only a game we played and a lot of good moments which we can use and a lot of bad moments we can work on. That's all."
The German allayed fears of a reoccurrence of the shoulder injury which forced talisman Salah out of the Champions League final.
He added: "I was not concerned about it otherwise he wouldn't have played. He came in and scored after pretty much 35 seconds.
"Mo had a big impact together with Sadio and Dom (Solanke), and the midfield with Marko (Grujic), Pedro (Chirivella) and Ben (Woodburn) played fantastic."
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was upbeat about the display despite the end result.
He was quoted on the Manchester City official website as saying: "It was incredible, what we did. For 75 minutes, it was incredible with the players we have what we did against that team - the finalists of the Champions League, who have amazing players.
"I'm so proud and happy to be manager of these guys for that reason. Our personality was incredible. In the first half, we had a very young average age.
"For the last 15 minutes, we were so tired. We made some changes and in the last few minutes, Liverpool deserved to score goals."
