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Jurgen Klopp has told Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren to just “take a knife and kill me” rather than play any more dangerous passes out of defence.

The Liverpool manager highlighted some poor distribution from the back as one area for improvement after his team’s narrow but deserved Boxing Day victory over surprise Premier League tabletoppers Leicester City.

The Reds’ 1-0 win was, however, the only Premier League game this season in which Claudio Ranieri’s men have failed to score and Klopp was generally very pleased with the efforts of his centre backs.

Speaking about the clean sheet after the game, Klopp said: “Yeah, it was very, very important for us because both the centre halves were injured.

“Dejan trained this week with the team for the first time, it was not that long an injury but he was out two weeks.

“And yeah, you saw Mama (Sakho) before the injury, then last week and today, it’s difficult to come in. Nobody’s waiting for you, you have to be prepared from the first second, there’s no time to come in easy, but they did really good.

“I said both played one of these passes - I said ‘If you want to kill me, take a knife, don’t play these passes, you don’t have to’.

“Everybody is running, everybody’s won the ball and then they play these. It’s an invitation to counter-attack.

“But the rest was really good, the clean sheet was very good for us.”

The Leicester win in pictures:

Leicester played lots of balls into the Liverpool penalty area late in the game, including several long throws from Christian Fuchs, but strong headers from captain Jordan Henderson and Lovren helped the Reds hold out.

Simon Mignolet, fit again and recalled to the side after Adam Bogdan’s struggles at Watford, was also picked out by his manager for a solid display.

The Belgian did particularly well to gather a ball which took two deflections before ending in his arms while also denying a Nathan Dyer effort.

Klopp said: “It’s really difficult for goalkeepers to defend these set plays because the box is full, the six yard box is full, nobody protests you if you come out.

“It’s like a joke – ‘ah, the goalkeeper tried and he couldn’t do it’ – so I’m really pleased with the clean sheet.

“But we needed a little bit of luck. You saw it, Simon had brilliant moments for us, to be honest I saw it for the first time after the game because there were too many bodies in the box.

“The difference is sometimes not too big, between the clean sheet and two goals conceded, you need a bit of luck. Today we had it and I think we deserved it so everything is okay.”

The only downside to the Anfield victory was another injury, this time a tight hamstring for striker Divock Origi, who had impressed in his 38 minutes in the pitch.

Klopp has declared ‘hamstring’ to be his “s**t word of the year” after a succession of such problems for his players and he puts them firmly down to the fixture intensity his players face.

“It could not be the training because we can’t train often enough.

“It’s the intensity of the schedule, if you have too many injuries like we had then other players have to play too often.

“You can’t stop this, a little bit here, a little bit there.

“For example look at our situation with centre halves. Two plus Kolo are fit, then one goes out and the next comes in and has to play immediately and things like this.

“It’s not too easy but we cannot change it, we cannot change training because you cannot do more, you cannot do less.

“You have to do the things everybody knows are right in recovery and then you have to play football.

“The last few games were not that intensive that you can say it was because of the game. We did not run 130km, it was 116km or something like this, completely normal, so that’s not the reason.

“You need a little bit of luck and then you have to fight.

“That’s what we did today. We took the circumstances and we used them and that’s what we had to do today.”

Match winner Christian Benteke was hailed by his manager as “a goal getter, no doubt” but the German is confident his player can deliver even more than just goals.

The £32.5m striker still failed to make the starting line-up, just as he was overlooked against Watford, but emerged from the bench to seal the points in the 63rd minute.

Klopp, who had a heart to heart with the 25-year-old last week, said: “When I came here he was injured and Christian is a tall boy so he needs to be fit.

“He wasn’t, now he gets fitter and fitter. He had a really good week in training but today we decided on a different formation.

“We decided on Divock to play like we played. He (Benteke) can do this too, it was a close decision, how it should be.

“He came in, made the goal, that’s good for him, good for us.

“We all need his goals but I do not think about him only because of goals.

“We need a striker for many, many other options. He can do this, I know he can. We had a really good talk this week, everything is okay.”