Saturday 4 March 2017 22:27, UK
Jurgen Klopp said he felt increasingly confident as the week progressed that Liverpool would beat Arsenal following their disappointing defeat to Leicester.
Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Georginio Wijnaldum scored the goals on Saturday in a 3-1 win for the Reds, who bounced back from Monday's 3-1 loss at Leicester to go third in the Premier League.
The Liverpool boss admitted they spent more time than usual picking over the bones of that display at the King Power and even three days ago he was not convinced his players would be able to beat Arsenal.
"The analysis of the Leicester game was nothing for me to enjoy but only if you are really silly do you let the bad things influence you," Klopp said.
"If I would have thought after Wednesday if you'd asked me whether we can win against Arsenal the answer would have been 'no'," he said.
"But if you would have asked me on Thursday it would have been, 'not sure' but on Friday I knew, 'yes we can'.
"The performance tonight should not be a surprise because we have played a few times like this."
Arsene Wenger dropped Alexis Sanchez to the bench in a surprise move before the match.
The Chilean made an impact as a half-time substitute, setting up Danny Welbeck's goal, but Klopp insisted he was not shocked by the decision to initially omit Sanchez.
"I am 17 years a manager and I am really not surprised about any line-ups in my life," Klopp added.
"We always analyse without knowing who is playing. We did it with Alexis Sanchez in the line-up but when Giroud is in the line-up it is a different game.
"For us it is not a big advantage and Alexis had a big impact on the game.
"We expected a response from Arsenal when Alexis Sanchez was on the pitch because he is a world-class player.
"It took five minutes to adapt to the situation because they had two big chances at the start of the second half."
