Liverpool’s Gini Wijnaldum felt his side coped brilliantly with the “wild and hectic” game against Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday.
The Reds won 3-1 in the huge Premier League clash with strikes from Fabinho, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané giving Liverpool a 3-0 lead. Bernardo Silva scored Manchester City’s late consolation goal.
Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com after the game, Gini Wijnaldum couldn’t hide his delight with the result while also commenting on the str0ng start City had made in the game.
“What a game!
“I think the way the game started was quite difficult – they play a long ball to the right side and I think they ended up with two corners, so at that moment you have to be awake immediately because otherwise, you can concede a goal. But I think we did it quite well and next to that it was quite wild and hectic!
“But after the first couple of minutes, I think we played good football [and] scored two goals. In the second half, we came out of the dressing room, started good and scored another one.
“It was 3-0 and then at the end, because we were tired, it was a little bit difficult and they were getting better in the game and this resulted in one goal for them. But at the end, we played a very good game.
“They just grew in the game [after Liverpool’s flying start] and we tried to stop them with all we had.
“That’s what we did but you could still see that they have a lot of quality, so we did everything but sometimes they still came through our press.
“That’s the kind of team we were playing against today but I think overall we did a tremendous job by playing the way we played in there and we can be proud of ourselves.”
Wijnaldum was asked if he felt that confidence was growing within the dressing room as the season progressed.
“Yeah, [with] the way we’re getting the results, with going behind and still managing to win the games,” the Dutchman stated.
“Look at last week when we played Aston Villa away, I think everybody thought we might lose the game or draw but we managed to win the game at the end.
“Those kind of moments give you confidence during the season and that’s what we have right now: we have confidence because of the results we are getting but also because of the football we are playing. That’s what we showed today.”
Sunday’s win means Liverpool head into the international break with an 8-point lead over Leicester City and Chelsea while Manchester City are a further point back.
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