Jurgen Klopp has explained the decision to substitute Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota – despite Liverpool needing goals to keep alive their Champions League hopes at Real Madrid.
The Reds began with a four-pronged attack with Nunez and Jota joined by Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah as they sought to overturn a 5-2 deficit from the home leg of their round of 16 tie.
Nunez twice came close in the first half but joined Jota in being replaced before the hour as Roberto Firmino and Harvey Elliott.
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Liverpool, though, failed to find the target before a late Karim Benzema goal consigned them to a 1-0 defeat on Wednesday evening.
And asked about the substitutions, Klopp said: “For Diogo it was clear he shouldn’t play extremely long as he is still coming back from a long, long injury and you could see the game got harder for him. He made some fouls as he was coming late, so no risk for him.
“Darwin looked like he was not at the absolute top level as well and we needed to defend that side as well. We could change and we wanted to mix things up a bit.”
Liverpool were indebted to two excellent saves from Alisson Becker to deny Vinicius Jnr and Eduardo Camavinga in the first half, and Klopp admitted his side hadn’t done enough to remain in the competition.
“We came here with the backpack we had with the three goals difference, and you need a special performance and we didn’t show a special performance tonight,” said the Reds boss.
“In moments it was a good performance but Real Madrid were the team in control for most of the game. They had the better chances, Ali had to make two sensational saves to keep us in the game and that’s the reason (we lost).
“If you want to get through, you need to be outstanding. If you want to win the game, you need to be really good, and Madrid was the better team and that’s why the right team went through to the next round.”
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