Jurgen Klopp has insisted there will be no let up from his newly crowned champions in their quest to produce a record-breaking season.
A hard-earned, and often laboured victory over Aston Villa thanks to goals from Sadio Mane and youngster Curtis Jones takes them tantalisingly close now to become the first top flight side in modern English football history to win every game in a league season.
Two more Anfield victories will give them an unprecedented clean sweep, and also take them to within touching distance of the all-time record points tally, which is currently the 100 posted by Manchester City two seasons ago.
Just 12 more points from their final five games will do it, but Klopp said he does not have to use any of the records within their grasp to ensure his team will keep playing right until the end of the season, despite their title triumph.
"I think the boys know it - I don’t have to tell them," he said. "It is easy, if we want to have records we pretty much have to win all our games.
“The boys showed they understand that without me telling them, The boys know it and I don’t have to tell them. That is enough for this group - I saw that today these boys are fighting for everything.
“I don’t even know the numbers myself to be honest. I know we have to fight for everything and see at the end what we have achieved, and you could see in a very difficult game the team did exactly that."
While Klopp was effusive about his side’s character on a fiercely windy afternoon which made for tough playing conditions, he was less forthcoming on reported interest in Bayern Munich midfielder Thiago Alcantara.
The Spain international’s club manager Hansi Flick has admitted the player wants to leave “to experience another big league”, and that is likely to happen this summer.
But Klopp said when asked: “Would you be surprised if I don’t give an answer on that because I never give an answer on these types of questions. Thiago is a really good player - like a lot of players out there I like him a lot, but that’s all I have to say on that.”
"What Curtis has is he's in these positions. There's no lack of confidence. He wants to be there, he wants to be decisive and that's really good, he deserves the goal and the appearance and I'm really happy for him."
Klopp offered praise to Jones after the 19 year old scored his first ever Premier League goal: “He wants to be there in these positions, and he doesn’t lack confidence, he wants to be decisive and that’s really good. I’m really happy for him.”
Villa were left stunned by the late onslaught from the Reds after surprisingly reducing the champions to no shots on goal until the 70th minute.
And manager Dean Smith insisted if his side can retain the confidence they showed at Anfield, they can beat the drop in the Premier League.
“To out-shoot Liverpool at home at Anfield, in terms of efforts on goal, it's excellent - but we need to take our opportunities. We never found the quality in the final third they did,” he said.
“I don't want to be a valiant loser, we're scrapping for points. But we can take lots of positives from that - It's a tough task but we're still in it that's for sure. Our performances since the restart haven't got the results they deserved.
“We need to keep the belief in the dressing room, it's some achievement to come here and play as we did but we have to maintain the belief. I thought we more than matched the champions, and we need to use that.”
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