Jurgen Klopp said a “tricky” pitch in a rain-soaked Amsterdam left both sides “exhausted” in Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Ajax.
The Reds kicked off their Champions League campaign with three points and a clean sheet in their first game since Virgil van Dijk was ruled out by a long-term injury, with a makeshift centre-back pairing of Fabinho and Joe Gomez performing well at the back and Nicolas Tagliafico’s unfortunate own goal giving the visitors three points in the Netherlands.
Liverpool still found life tough going at times, with Fabinho needing to clear Dusan Tadic’s first-half effort off the line and Davy Klaassen striking the post from 20 yards within two minutes of the interval.
“We were good enough to win the game, that’s what you need,” he told BT Sport. “I think both teams can play better football, it was pretty wild at moments. I think the pitch was really tricky, deep, muddy a little bit, both teams looked really exhausted pretty early.”
Three days ago it looked completely different, yesterday in training too but it was the same for Ajax too. They are where we are, early in the season, that cannot be the reason really.”