Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool are still "chasing like mad" for the Premier League title as they went level on points with Manchester City at the top with a win at Aston Villa.
And the Reds boss detailed his pride at his players' quality and mental strength after they came back from an early goal to secure a 2-1 victory at Villa Park on Tuesday night.
Liverpool fell behind inside four minutes when Douglas Luiz tapped home after his initial header was saved, but responded shortly after through Joel Matip's second of the campaign.
Sadio Mane glanced a header past Emi Martinez in the Villa goal in the second half to make sure the Reds edged a hard-fought encounter in Birmingham and the triumph in their 59th game of the campaign leaves them level on points with City, although Pep Guardiola's men stay top on goal difference.
"It was massive, outstanding and again it was an incredible mentality," Klopp said. "We made five changes and coming here against a well set-up team with the diamond, we needed time to find [our way] into the game and the opponent was really there and aggressive.
"We had a lot of challenges and the main issue we had was using the ball in the wrong areas. It was difficult to get rhythm and on top of that we were 1-0 down.
"At least we could sort that pretty quickly. That was important and then the last 10 or 15 mins in the first half we started controlling the game and that was how we had to do it.
"The second goal was top drawer. We won the ball back and it was an incredible pass forward. Luis Diaz was sensational, his cross was for Sadio, he made the world of it. And then we had to dig deep."
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Klopp added: "They had a big chance with Ingsy (Danny Ings) and that was obviously a world-class save from Alisson. Look, if my players were not that good, I would talk about completely different stuff with you.
"The players' quality, character and mentality are the reason why we are where we are. I am not surprised they are able to do what they do but I don't take it for granted. I am really proud of what they have done tonight. It was massive.
"For me it is absolutely no problem [to chase Man City]. I spoke about it in the press conference and invited the boys to follow my mindset. In my mind we were six points behind City before the last matchday and we won and they lost.
"We are still chasing like mad and honestly we have worked brilliantly and the boys are invited to follow that path. So yes we don't waste energy thinking that hopefully they lose, we just know we have to win and that hasn't changed at all.
"Now we have to really recover and play the FA Cup because there is obviously no mercy anywhere because this is our situation for ourselves, qualifying for [three] finals, it is absolutely massive.
"We play an incredibly big game and from Thursday on we will prepare with the boys."
