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Jurgen Klopp insisted his Liverpool team would not be deflected from their path despite missing out on their best chance of silverware this season with the EFL Cup semi-final defeat to Southampton.

Shane Long's injury time winner gave Claude Puel's side a deserved aggregate victory and left Liverpool with just one win in seven in 2017.

The Liverpool manager however insisted his side would not suffer a hangover from the result and would come again.

He said: “Absolutely not. If we would doubt the way we are after these little problems it would be a really strange thing.

“We don't have the points we want, we don't have the results we want, that's how it is. But we know what we have to do, we know what we want to do, we know about the football we want to play so that's all good.

“It was a really good performance. Today it was really difficult to play football with this wind. They did good, I'm fine with this but obviously disappointed about being out.

“For me as a coach it's very important how we choose to create chances. And it was absolutely okay the reaction of the team.”

Southampton sat back and hit the Reds on the break but Klopp was happy his team stuck to their strategy.

Klopp added: “The first half was not bad but it was similar to Swansea. Dominant, dominant, dominant but no goal. But we didn't lose our nerve. "We stuck to the usual plan (second half) and did a little bit better in one or two moments and immediately we had better chances.

“At the end we are out and lost both legs so I think nobody will talk about this for a long time.

“But for us the performance is really important and I'm fine with this. In a Cup naturally I would like to speak about planning a final and not a performance but now we are on the wrong side of this semi-final.”

The Reds boss was also questioned about Southampton's well-worn plan of sitting deep, something which has been very popular among opposition defences this season.

The difference right now is that Liverpool don't seem to have an answer to it.

He said: “For me as a coach it's not that difficult because we are not the only team in the world who have to deal with this. Not every team is playing like this but quite a lot. 70-80% of the games are like this , we spoke about this. We knew it before so it's not a problem.

“But we still adapt to it 100%, we did it, you have to score in this or that situation...It's the most difficult thing in football but we are not the only team who have to accept this.

“We are a good football playing side. Southampton I think they normally play completely different.

"Probably if they always played like this they'd probably have a few points more I don't know because the counter-attacking was really good and they defended with a little but of luck.

“Creating chances against a team like this is really not easy but we did it and then you have to score.

"That didn't happen tonight but that's not a problem in general, it's only for tonight.”