Jurgen Klopp reveals Liverpool player who 'struggled slightly' in AFC Bournemouth victory

Jurgen Klopp explained the decision behind Darwin Nunez's positional change that inspired Liverpool's victory over Bournemouth.

The Reds earned a 4-0 triumph on the south coast to restore a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League table. But despite their emphatic win, it was not all plain sailing for the visitors.

Liverpool went into half-time goalless, having struggled to create any clear-cut chances. However, Klopp rejigged his attacking players at the interval, moving Nunez from the left-flank to a striker role, which resulted in Diogo Jota being switched to the right-hand side and Luis Diaz shifted to the opposite flank.

The decision reaped the rewards as Nunez and Jota both plundered doubles for the Reds, who were again without talisman Mo Salah due to the African Cup of Nations. And Klopp was delighted that Liverpool picked up a 'super-deserved win' he could not foresee in the opening 45 minutes.

The Liverpool manager said: "In the situation we are in without Mo [Salah], for example, we have to find a way. We have players who can play [on] the right wing, and they can all play [on] the right wing, but which is the best position? And how do we set up the rest around? Darwin can obviously play [on] the left wing, he did [that] before. We were in general in the first half too static. On the left wing as well, Darwin plays there, Joe [Gomez] is a bit deeper, protects there, waiting too much for long balls in behind, we weren't really involved enough in possession moments.

"Lucho [Luis Diaz] struggled slightly on the right wing and Diogo played an OK game, I think, but we had not a lot of moments there, to be honest. So, we had to make a decision [to] bring Darwin in his position and bring Lucho in his position and ask Diogo to do the job there. Diogo is, how I said, they can all play [on] the right wing, and he did before, but on top of that [he's] a really smart player, but in general we just started playing better [in the] midfield as well

"That's important because I'm not 100 per cent [sure] which goal we scored after we won the ball back, but that wouldn't have happened in the first half I'm pretty sure because we didn't push up. This half-time, they are important, you can ask me completely rightly so why you didn't start like that in the first place? It's absolutely right. But the good thing is after half-time you can see yourself from outside but it's difficult to change it on the pitch because we spoke about that before; where are the half-spaces? We had two or three good moments which we could show the boys. If we do that then Bournemouth will see that we are stronger than we showed up in the first half and that's the first step into the game and that's why in the end it was [a] super-deserved win, which didn't look like that for a long time in the first half."