Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp hails history-makers after 7-0 Maribor thrashing
Reds equalled Marseille's 2010 record of biggest away victory after blasting seven past Slovenian side
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JURGEN KLOPP hailed his record-equalling Liverpool stars after they demolished Maribor 7-0 in the Champions League.
The Reds rout is the joint-highest away win in Champions League history alongside Marseille's result against Slovakia's Zilina in 2010.
It is also Liverpool's first away victory in the group stage since they beat Hungarian side Debrecen November 2009.
Results in Group E mean Klopp's men are now top after recording their first European win this season.
He said: "It will give the players a lot of confidence.
"I was told about the record after the game and I didn't know about it. The wonderful history of this club can feel like a back-pack at times so it is nice to write our own good piece of the history.
"It will be difficult to beat that record. It is quite rare to win 7-0 but it showed we did unbelievably well.
"Maribor were quite confident before the game for different reasons. We could read the papers over here because my assistant speaks the language and he said they were positive because no English team had won in Maribor (in the Champions League)."
Liverpool not only won, but destroyed their Slovenian opposition.
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Doubles from Roberto Firmino and Mo Salah, as well as goals from Philippe Coutinho, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Trent Alexander-Arnold, told only some of the story as it could have been double figures in Maribor.
Klopp said: "From the first second it was exactly what we wanted to do.
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"We wanted to show the best counter pressing in the last few weeks – I really thought that protecting our offensive movements were really good but we could have done better in counter pressing – and tonight was really good.
"A few of the goals came from counter-pressing situations.
"How we finished these situations was good too, we were cool enough. Often this season we have been alone in the box and not relaxed enough to play the right pass but tonight was different.
"We showed how good we can be and we never gave up. It was a good all-round performance. It has to be to win 7-0 of course."
Oxlade-Chamberlain's strike in particular will come as a sigh of relief from both the struggling player and the manager who spent £35million to sign him from Arsenal.
Klopp said: "It will open his chest. It will help him a lot. He could have scored two. It was nice from Daniel how he made this goal, really cool. The performance was very active.
"The boys deserved that, and we really kept on going. The only problem recently was how to explain why we didn't win.
"That has been the most difficult thing about our recent games. When you don't score it is a challenge to stay confident but we will try to use this result now.
"The next game is Tottenham so it's pretty likely it will not be a similar result. We have five days to recover and prepare and we are looking forward to it."
