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Klopp hails 'best game of the season' for Reds

Cape Town - Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp declared himself "proud" of his side's 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday which maintained their perfect start to the season.

The Reds were better in all areas at Wembley Stadium as goals from Georginio Wijnaldum (39') and Roberto Firmino (54') secured a fifth successive victory in the Premier League this term.

Alisson was denied a clean sheet, though, when Erik Lamela pulled one back in stoppage time, but Klopp marvelled at the performance of his team after so little time to prepare them due to the international break.

The German was left in no doubt that his players put on their best show of the campaign thus far to keep pace with Chelsea at the top of the league table.

"Let me say, it was the best game of the season for us for sure," Klopp said in his post-match press conference. "We had in all the games really good moments. Today, we had 85 brilliant minutes and then unfortunately we didn't finish the game off.

"That means Tottenham have the quality to strike back, that's what they did after a corner. But then nothing happened anymore.

"So I'm really happy about the performance and proud of the performance because the boys came back Wednesday and Thursday, we trained yesterday and then playing our football in that way, that's really nice for a manager.

Asked which aspect of their game impressed him the most, the 51-year-old replied: "All over, to be honest. I really thought defending against the ball, we were brilliant. We caused Tottenham a lot of problems in these situations.

"They are so good and so tuned and they do it so confidently to pass through the lines that you need to be outstandingly brave and ready to close these gaps. They are really big sometimes, so it's really difficult but we did it.

"With the ball, how we controlled the game, I was happy as well. We were confident, we played good football, we created moments, we prepared direction, we played passes in behind, played counter-pressing, so it was just good.

"I really think with five per cent less we would have lost. Our timing today was really good; our best performance there, so we got the three points."

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