Pep Lijnders was on hand to offer some tactical advice to Jurgen Klopp after a frustrating first-half for the Reds.
Mohamed Salah initially missed a penalty in the first-half, but quickly made amends after finishing off a slick team move to make it 1-0 to the Reds.
Although the Magpies responded with an Alexander Isak goal, Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo scored a quickfire double to make it 3-1 to the Reds.
Sven Botman gave the visitors hope when he scored a header at the Kop End.
Nonetheless, M0hamed Salah secured the points for Jurgen Klopp’s men when he converted a penalty won by Diogo Jota.
What did Jurgen Klopp say?
Speaking post-match, Jurgen Klopp was full of praise for both Salah and Nunez (via the Echo):
“We should not be really surprised that Mo can change a game because he did it hundreds of times.”
“But it’s just a really good example for the more goals you have the more you are used to missing chances.”
“You just understand what you have to do, you just keep going, improving and using the situations and that is what Mo did.”
“I got asked that question a lot of times about Mo scoring and Darwin didn’t but it’s just the game and what brought the game in the right direction was the first goal when Darwin squares that ball to Mo.”
“I would say everyone in the stadium would have hammered that ball through the goalkeeper to try and make it happen but he squares that ball and it was to make it 1-0.”
The Liverpool manager then revealed what his assistant manager said to help the Reds secure the win on New Years Day:
“I said it now a couple of times and I didn’t like it really but Pep Lijnders came to me and told me we needed Macca’s (Alexis Mac Allister) passes, so we brought him on.”
“Diogo too, it was a really good game from start to finish and when you have these options to bring on it is obviously helpful.”
It was good to see Alexis Mac Allister on the pitch after a somewhat lengthy spell on the sidelines.
Hopefully the versatile Argentine can stay fit for the rest of the season as he is a key player for the Reds.
In other news, Mo Salah has his say on his upcoming absence from Liverpool games.