Thiago Alacantra on the Merseyside derby: 'It's a derby for the crowd. For us, it's just a game that we have to play now away.'
Liverpool star Thiago Alcantara expressed his joy after scoring back-to-back goals.
After scoring against FC Porto in the Champions League last week, the Spanish midfield maestro found the net again in Liverpool’s 4-0 win over Southampton at Anfield on Saturday.
Diogo Jota scored a brace to hand the Reds the lead after 32 minutes before Thiago's deflected shot made it 3-0, and then Virgil van Dijk’s second-half strike wrapped up all three points for Jurgen Klopp’s team.
"As I said, it's special to score at this stadium [Anfield] but I am even more pleased with the win," Thiago told Liverpoolfc.com after the tie against the Saints.
"We are pretty happy with our performance most of the first half and [in the] second.
"First half was a great game. We concede a bit but we also created a lot of chances, we create good football and at the end we got the result [in the] first half.
"Second one, for sure we were playing with the time, with the result and also knowing that in three days you have another game, so it's a mix of feelings that you don't have to have. You just have to be focused on this game and stay hungry the whole game.
"We were preparing the game for [their] 4-4-2, 4-4-1-1, but at the end, they changed.
"But I think we had a lot of experience in football to analyse the moment how the opponents are playing and just to convert our game there."
The Reds play Everton on Wednesday evening and are clear favourites to win the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.
However, Thiago is optimistic about the upcoming match against their local rivals.
"It's a derby, it's always special,” the 30-year-old said. “We have to have in our mind it's another Premier League game that we have to give [our] all. It's our mindset.
"It doesn't matter, it's a derby for the crowd. For us, it's just a game that we have to play now away.
"It's the moment of the season that we were waiting for, to play every three days, have less training for sure.
"But we want to play football. It doesn't matter if it's in one, two, three days, we just want to play football."
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