Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has defended his decision to bring off Darwin Nunez before the hour mark, despite his side needing a three goal turnaround against Real Madrid.
The Reds headed into the second leg of their Champions League last 16 clash 5-2 down on aggregate to Los Blancos. As a result, Klopp selected an attacking starting line-up, with Nunez, Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo all featuring.
Despite that, the Reds struggled to create much of note, having just five shots on target over the 90 minutes. With the game still goalless after 57 minutes, Klopp opted to make two changes, hauling off Nunez and Jota in favour of Roberto Firmino and Harvey Elliott.
Liverpool would ultimately go on to lose the second leg after Karim Benzema's late strike. And Klopp has defended his move to take off two of his star attackers despite his team still needing a miracle turnaround.
"Darwin looked like he was not on the absolute top level and then we need to defend that side as well because conceding a goal is not helpful in that situation," the Liverpool boss said.
"We can change there, that's why we did it. We wanted to mix it a little bit, that's true. For Diogo, it was clear that he should not play now extremely long because he is still coming back from a long, long injury.
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"You could see the game got harder and harder for him, little fouls there, one, two, three, he is not a player who is usually fouling so perhaps he comes a bit late. So, no risk with him and we have options on the bench."
Klopp admitted that his side had been beaten by the better team across the two legs. And he conceded that the Reds had left themselves with too much to do after the disastrous defeat at Anfield three weeks ago.
"We came here with the backpack we had with the three goals difference. You need a special performance and we didn't show a special performance tonight," Klopp added.
"It was, in moments, a good performance, but Real Madrid was, for the whole game, the team in control of the game. They had the better chances, Ali had to make two sensational saves to keep us in the game and that's the reason.
"Again, if you want to go through you need to be outstanding; if you want to win the game, you need to be really good. In the end, Madrid were the better team and that's why the right team went through to the next round.
"I was not angry after the game, but I was disappointed. I would be angry if we would have played better and it was close and then they win because of a penalty which was not a penalty or stuff like this. Real Madrid were just the better side."
