Liverpool’s Victory Over Brighton Both Win and Wake-Up Call

Liverpool weren’t at their best against Brighton on Saturday and still came away with the win, and for Jürgen Klopp, that might be just about the best possible result, granting his side three points but protecting against any risk of complacency.

Three wins to start the season and sitting top of the table for August is the best possible start, but had his side put on a thrilling show against Brighton rather than grinding out a fairly uninspired win Klopp worries what might have happened next.

“Winning 5-0 for example, with a brilliant performance, I’m sure this early in the season Leicester would have given us a nice wake-up call [next week],” Klopp told the club’s official website. “So we are already awake now after that game.”

Awake and knowing that as a team they need to work on things in midfield and attack to get back to their best—and following the match, Klopp hinted that a few changes might be on the way after running out the same starting eleven three times.

Where things likely won’t be changed against Leicester is at the back, where Liverpool’s defence and goalkeeper have now kept three clean sheets in a row and suddenly has this Liverpool side looking like one that can grind out the results.

“We have worked a lot on it,” Klopp noted of the defence. “I know people will say it’s Virgil [van Dijk]—he has a massive impact. Now it’s Alisson—and he has a massive impact. But our good run defensively started last year in October or so.

“We know we’re always able to create chances but, like today, we will not always use them and then a clean sheet helps massively. Usually last year this team stood for spectacular. Today, it was work. No problem with that.”