Jurgen Klopp admitted that he and his coaching staff had to issue some important advice to Stefan Bajcetic after his introduction into the clash with Manchester United.
The young Spanish-Serbian had been brought into the action as a number six but had apparently let the excitement of the occasion get to him, leading to the 55-year-old reminding his young protege of his positional responsibilities.
“Let me say it like this, I loved the impact of Stefan when he came on but he was a six and he was everywhere, so we had to remind him, ‘By the way, you are six!’,” the German tactician told reporters after the game, as relayed by liverpoolfc.com.
“We had a moment in the first half when Hendo and Fabinho were half-left in the box, I am not sure where Harvey was there but probably not in protection.
“These moments we don’t need. That’s when you lose a bit with the excitement, you lose the overview and these kind of things are really important to be stable.
“That’s what we have to be because we need consistency, we need results and it will not always be like this that we score with all of these situations.
“There will be other games where we don’t score that much and you have to dominate football games, if you can. Today we could and that’s why we had to do it.”
At 18 years of age, it’s entirely understandable how the occasion could have got to the holding midfielder, especially with the prospect of further goals no doubt on the mind of others yet to fill their boots against the hapless visitors.
That all being said, Klopp’s correct to point out the need for structure and defensive stability even when we’re in such a dominant position both on the pitch and on the scoreboard.
As much as we’d love to see this Liverpool side firing seven past our opponents every week, the reality is that there are more games like the 2-0 win over Wolves in the calendar on average, and so it’s absolutely critical we’re on our game and keep up standards at all times.
Bajcetic, for the most part, has been one of the shining lights of this season, however, and we can probably just chalk this one down to the excitement of the moment.