Sadio Mane's "huge achievement" of scoring 100 goals for Liverpool was lauded by Jurgen Klopp after the Senegal international kicked off the Reds' 3-0 win over Crystal Palace,
Mane became the first player in competition history to score against the same opponent in nine consecutive games, surpassing Robin van Persie's eight in a row against Stoke, and his wonderful close-range strike just before half-time made the Senegal-born star the 18th player in 224 appearances to reach a century of the 4 times Champions League winner Liverpool goals.
In the second half, Mohamed Salah scored for the fifth goal in six games this season, before replacement Naby Keita completed the win with a wonderfully executed left-footed volley set up by Mane's historic strike.
I am overjoyed for him that he was able to accomplish such a monumental feat in the illustrious history of this club, where only 18 players have scored 100 goals.
Nowadays, players do not stay at clubs for as long as they used to, so I am grateful that I was able to work with him for so long.
Klopp made six changes from the midweek Champions League triumph over AC Milan, including a new back four with summer recruit Ibrahima Konate making his debut, and they got off to an unsurprisingly rocky start.
After calming down, they might have been out of sight before half-time, but they had to withstand a stronger Palace push in the second half, and Klopp was full of praise for the performance, though he was hesitant to read too much into it.
We're not here to send a message to the outside world; we're here to fight a tremendously powerful Crystal Palace squad, he explained.
I told the lads it was one of the hardest-fought 3-0s I'd ever seen. I'm really happy.
We weren't brilliant, but we embraced the struggle Palace was here for, and that's why I'm pleased with the outcome and performance.
Palace manager Patrick Vieira was pleased with certain parts of his team's performance but was dissatisfied with their defending at corners, which contributed to all three goals.
I believe 3-0 is difficult and unjust given the number of opportunities we generated and the scenarios we created, he stated.
We were terrible at defending set-pieces, and you can't surrender three goals on set-pieces at Anfield if you want to win.
At the moment, it's more frustrating because we knew how difficult this game was going to be, and I thought we played some very fantastic football.
The irritation came from conceding those three goals on set-pieces, which is to be expected while playing in this league.
There was a lack of concentration at times, and we paid for it with the caliber of their players.
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