Fabinho aggression impresses Jurgen Klopp on first Champions League start for Liverpool

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David Lynch24 October 2018

Jurgen Klopp joked that he decided to play with two holding midfielders as a birthday present to summer signing Fabinho after Liverpool earned a 4-0 win over Red Star Belgrade.

But the German was deadly serious in his praise of the Brazilian’s "aggressive" performance in the centre of the park on just his second start for the club since a move from AS Monaco.

A day after celebrating his 25th birthday, Fabinho was trusted to feature from the off for the first time since a League Cup meeting with Chelsea in late September.

Asked for his thoughts on his No.3’s contributions to a big win that moved the Reds top of their Champions League group, Klopp replied: “Very good. Very, very good.

“The present for his birthday was not that he was in the line-up, it was that we played his favourite system with double six and he played really well, it was cool.

“It was good to see [him] very aggressive, everything was there. For the first game - not the first game, but for a while - it was good, it was really good and very aggressive.

“It was quite impressive what people saw tonight. It always helps a player to play a good game, to be honest, and that helped us tonight and helped him.

“That was the start, so let’s carry on.”

AP

Mohamed Salah grabbed a brace on his 65th Liverpool outing to establish himself as the quickest player to 50 goals for in the club’s 126-year history, beating his nearest challenger Albert Stubbins by 12 games.

Klopp insisted the Egyptian’s teammates deserve just as much credit for his incredible tally, and expressed hope that recent criticism of his form may now subside.

He added: “I think he would say thanks to his teammates because it’s quite difficult to score goals without these wonderful passes, crosses, whatever.

“Like tonight, I have to watch it back but I think the first goal he scored was just a genius little link-up play of Shaqiri, I don’t know how he did that.

“It’s good that we maybe can stop talking about that, that helps a little bit. I’m not in doubt, he was not in doubt, but if you constantly ask about it then it’s like something obviously is wrong or people or not happy.

“You should not constantly think about how can [you] score again, it only happens when you work hard, when you are in the right spaces, if your teammates see you in the right moments and if you make the right runs - then you can score.

“It’s an exceptional number and, hopefully, he can continue.”

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