Alonso effusive in his praise for irresistible Liverpool after last night’s 4-0 humbling at Anfield in the Champions L:eague.
Alonso described Liverpool as “a complete team” after he endured a painful return to Anfield with Bayer Leverkusen.
When Luis Díaz scored a hat-trick for Arne Slot’s team, who are currently leading the Premier League and Champions League standings, the former Liverpool player suffered the joint-heaviest loss of his Leverkusen reign. Liverpool scored all of their goals in a tumultuous second-half performance that increased Slot’s stellar start to 14 victories in 16 games.
“I think they are a complete team,” said the Leverkusen coach of his old club. “They are able to defend, to score, they have power in both boxes, they can keep clean sheets and they are able to score with not many chances.
“That is a great strength in the Champions League, especially in the next round. They have this power but it is still too early to tell. The team has a good balance. The coach is doing great work so far. It’s looking a promising season but we are still in November.”
Although Liverpool supporters welcomed Alonso, he acknowledged that the magnitude of the defeat made the evening challenging.
“I have bitter feelings with the game which mean I can’t enjoy the reception too much, but I really appreciated it and was thankful that even after so many years that I come here and I have this bond with the club. It was nice but it would have been nicer with a better result.”
The Liverpool head coach said: “I only have four strikers available at the minute and with the fixture list it is almost impossible to play them all the time. And I think [Jonathan] Tah is one of the best defenders in Germany, if not the best, and he likes to play against a target man so I chose to play Lucho [Díaz] from the left and the middle to surprise him with runs in behind. What a pass from Curtis Jones [for Diaz’s opening goal].”