Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's first Liverpool goal will 'open his chest' - Jurgen Klopp

Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Tom Doyle18 October 2017

Jurgen Klopp has backed Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to kick on after scoring his first Liverpool goal in the 7-0 Champions League mauling of Maribor.

Oxlade-Chamberlain was introduced in the 57th minute, with the match already over as a contest with Liverpool leading 5-0 courtesy of goals from Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Philippe Coutinho.

The former Arsenal midfielder netted his first goal for his new club with four minutes on the clock after a fine pass from Daniel Sturridge, with Trent Alexander-Arnold's heavily deflected effort capping a superb win.

Klopp, who pre-match admitted he had been impressed with £35million deadline day signing Oxlade-Chamberlain in recent days, felt the goal would be hugely beneficial to the England international.

"It will open his chest. It will help him a lot. He could have scored two," he added.

"It was nice from Daniel (Sturridge) how he made this goal, really cool."

Speaking about the result in relation to the rest of his team, Klopp 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.

In Pictures | Champions League gameweek 3 | 2017-18

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"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).

"The boys deserved that. 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."

Additional reporting by the Press Association.