Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp called for more consistency from his players after a sparkling 4-0 win at Bournemouth on Sunday followed a goalless stalemate at home to relegation-threatened West Bromwich Albion in midweek.
Philippe Coutinho, Dejan Lovren, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino all scored at the Vitality Stadium to lift Liverpool to fourth place and extend the club’s unbeaten run in the Premier League to nine games.
Klopp was pleased with “pretty much everything” about the display but said his side must perform at the same level in every match.
“I’m not here to celebrate my squad,” Klopp told Sky Sports. “I like them all – that’s why they are at Liverpool. At the West Brom game, they were exactly the same players but they didn’t hit the target.
“I don’t change my mind (about the players). They are good – that’s why they are at Liverpool – but they need to be consistently good because we are Liverpool.
“We are consistent, but we have to be even more consistent in decisive moments. We had a few games like the West Brom game – not performance-wise, but result-wise.”
Brazilian playmaker Coutinho enhanced his reputation by slaloming through the Bournemouth defence and scoring with a cool finish into the bottom corner after 20 minutes.
The 25-year-old is a target for Barcelona and Klopp said he was trying to structure his Liverpool squad in a way that will ensure a player is not missed if he is unavailable.
“He is a fantastic player, but the job of LFC is to play without Phil Coutinho, to play without Sadio Mane, to play without Mo Salah,” he said. “That makes the quality of a squad.
“Today, he (Coutinho) played really well and helped us a lot, but about the transfer, we have nothing to say about that. Nothing positive and nothing negative, until something happens. But that’s still a few weeks and months away.”
Earlier on Sunday, Manchester United survived a tense finale to beat West Bromwich Albion 2-1 at the Hawthorns and close to within 11 points of Premier League leaders Manchester City.
United’s former West Brom striker Romelu Lukaku scored his 15th goal of the season in the 27th minute by heading home Marcus Rashford’s left-wing cross.
Midfielder Jesse Lingard doubled the lead with a deflected shot from the edge of the penalty area eight minutes later.
United appeared to be on course for a comfortable win, but West Brom set up a nervous finish for Jose Mourinho’s side when substitute Gareth Barry poked home from close range following a corner in the 77th minute.
United hung on, however, to restore their three-point advantage over third-placed Chelsea. West Brom have now gone 16 league matches without a win and remained second bottom, two points from safety.
“I think we deserved the win,” Mourinho told Sky Sports. “We were the best team. We controlled the game for a long, long time.”
United spurned opportunities to kill the game off when Rashford slashed a right-footed shot wide in the 57th minute and Lingard fired straight at West Brom goalkeeper Ben Foster.
They then switched off at a set-piece to allow Barry to score and were lucky not to concede an equaliser when Jay Rodriguez headed wide from point-blank range with five minutes remaining.
“We had a few chances to kill the game but I knew they would react,” Mourinho added. “The intensity in the first half maybe we didn’t have in the second half.”
West Brom manager Alan Pardew, who was appointed last month after Tony Pulis was sacked, made one change to the side who drew 0-0 against Liverpool on Wednesday.
“The team I picked, in hindsight, was not the right team,” Pardew said. “I should have put some fresh legs in there, but they did so well at Liverpool that, I’m a new manager, I wanted to show some faith in those players.
“But I should have maybe made two or three changes. We looked leggy.”
