Jurgen Klopp hailed Conor Bradley as “exceptional” after Liverpool beat Fulham 2-1 in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final.
Bradley had the tough job of deputising for the injured Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back and struggled at times against Willian. He could not prevent the Fulham winger from opening the scoring in the first half, but the 20-year-old academy graduate grew into the game and nearly finished it with an assist for Darwin Nunez, who saw his effort saved by Bernd Leno.
It was only Bradley’s 10th senior appearance for Liverpool, with Alexander-Arnold usually there to limit his opportunities. But Klopp was delighted to see him step up to the plate on a big occasion at Anfield.
Asked by Sky Sports if Bradley would sleep well tonight, Klopp said: “He will. I’m not sure he’ll make it home, probably he will fall asleep in the dressing room. Exceptional. What a boy. Fantastic character, real talent, top potential – and he’s in the right team because everybody loves him and respects him and wants him to succeed, it’s really nice.
“So yes, that was a really great game, with all the difficulties you have in football. It was super hard, super tough. He was involved in the goal we concede, falling over the ball or whatever, but as a team it was obvious that we caused ourselves some problems against a really compact defending from Fulham, we played a lot around and got stuck on the wing, no fluidity there and we had to change that and play more in the half-spaces.”
Liverpool went behind in the 19th minute when they made a mess of defending a bouncing ball to allow Andreas Pereira to set up Willian to power a low finish past Caoimhin Kelleher. Fulham defended deep and frustrated the home side and could have gone 2-0 ahead had Bobby De Cordova-Reid opted to pass to Pereira instead of shooting from a tight angle.
But Klopp’s double substitution made a huge difference, with Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo coming off the bench to effect the game. It was Nunez’s square pass which helped Curtis Jones fire a deflected shot in to make it 1-1 and the Uruguayan then crossed for Gakpo to beat Bernd Leno at the near post. Nunez could have grabbed a goal, too, but Leno made a great save from Conor Bradley’s cross.
Klopp told beINSPORTS: “The first half, we had a lot of possession without a lot of outcome. We played too much around the formation and for us now it’s a time that we have to adapt slightly because we are used to a couple of things and some of them were not there today. It’s not a problem, you’ve just got to adapt to it.
“We saw in the first half what’s wrong, it’s just difficult to change it, to talk to the players, to get information out there. Half-time was really crucial again today, to tell them where to play and stuff like this, because we didn’t play bad, we just didn’t play good.” (Mirror)