Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has dismissed claims Naby Keita was to blame for Atletico Madrid's two goals on Tuesday evening.
The Guinean midfielder, 26, was hauled off at half-time by Klopp after Antoine Griezmann scored twice at the Wanda Metropolitano.
The Reds manager replaced Keita with Fabinho - a more defensive option - after squandering a 2-0 lead in the Champions League.
Goals from Mohamed Salah and Keita himself had given Liverpool the advantage in the Spanish capital but poor defending helped Atletico get back on level terms.
Keita was at fault for Griezmann's first goal, allowing Thomas Lemar to skip beyond him with ease in the build-up.
And the former RB Leipzig star didn't cover himself in glory for the second goal, either, failing to deal Joao Felix's mesmerising run.
But Klopp has praised Keita for his superb volley and insists the change at half-time was purely tactical, refusing to place blame on the player.
When asked about the substitution, the Liverpool manager said: "First and foremost, it was nothing to do with Naby – we just had to defend the right side a bit better.
"We were a bit too wide, but Naby scored a goal and stuff like this and I spoke to him already.
"It is really important to me that nobody thinks we played the first half – or the second part of the first half – because of Naby. Not at all.
"He is in really good shape, but he played three games for Guinea there and the last Premier League game 90 minutes and then today.
"As I said, 45 minutes I think was absolutely right."
Liverpool went on to win the game 3-2 thanks to a late Salah penalty and two controversial refereeing decisions.
Griezmann was sent off in the 52nd minute after German ref Daniel Siebert deemed his high challenge on Roberto Firmino to be reckless.
And Atletico were denied a late penalty when the VAR official advised Siebert to review his decision after initially giving a spot kick.
Both calls could have gone the other way, with former Premier League referee Peter Walton disagreeing with latter on BT Sport.
Klopp, however, was keen to highlight the importance of Liverpool's half-time breather in his post-match press conference.
He added: "What I started with, first and foremost, I was really positive because we knew much more about them than we did before the game.
"We know exactly where the spaces are, where we have to play, we just didn’t do it and we showed two situations.
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"We had too many easy passes around the formation and not in or through the formation.
"It was clear when it went 2-2 I never expected that they would now start chasing us with the ball.
"They turned the game in exactly the way they wanted to play from the beginning, defending in the right spaces, winning the ball and go for it.
"They didn’t change, so we had to go back to what we actually wanted from the beginning. That’s what we did."
