Jurgen Klopp Pleased With Crystal Palace Victory But Admits Liverpool Were Not 'At Their Best'

Jurgen Klopp admitted he was pleased with Liverpool's display despite his side not being at their best in Saturday's "very difficult" 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace. 

The Eagles took an early lead when when Luka Milovojevic converted from the spot after Wilfried Zaha had been brought down by Loris Karius. 

Liverpool grabbed an equaliser moments after the break when Sadio Mane swept James Milner's cross past Wayne Hennessey. The Reds' sloppiness in defence then gifted Christian Benteke two glorious goalscoring chances - both of which he skied over the bar. Palace were made to pay late on when Mohamed Salah kept his composure to rifle home the winner.

The win initially lifted Liverpool up to second in the table but they have since dropped back down to third following Manchester United's 2-0 win over Swansea.

"[It was] hard work, very intense, very difficult and in the end a deserved three points. The start in the game was not perfect for us, of course," Klopp said in his post-match press conference, as quoted by Liverpool's website.

"The first chance was for Crystal Palace with the fantastic save from Loris Karius [after a] long ball. The next long ball was kind of a 50/50 situation, I didn’t see it back, but I think it was dangerous play from both [Karius and Zaha] kind of, and then Loris touched him, 100 per cent.

"Penalty for Crystal Palace, which makes the game not easy and the job not easier. Then you have to still play football and we did that first half but not often enough and not good enough in a few moments, otherwise I think when we did it good we were in front of Hennessey.

"In the second half we knew that we had to carry on and down our nerves first of all because it was quite emotional - a penalty on one side, no penalty on the other side, a yellow card and stuff like that," he continued. 

"We did that but then we lost a little bit of the power at the end of the game because in the last two weeks, [there have been] completely different intensity levels for the players with friendly games.

"Some trained really hard, some didn’t train a lot, and coming together in one day and bringing them all on one level is always a big challenge. Today you could see that. Both teams were not at their best, so it was a question who will in the end shoot one more goal. It was us, so I am really pleased with that."

Liverpool next face Manchester City in the Champions League's quarter finals on Wednesday before they make the short trip to Goodison Park on Saturday to face Merseyside rivals Everton in the Premier League.