Cape Town - Jurgen Klopp hailed his Liverpool team on Sunday after they earned a comfortable 2-0 win at Southampton to climb into third position.

Two superb first-half goals from Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah put Liverpool on the road to victory at St. Mary’s Stadium and left Klopp purring with admiration, while the defence, including returning former Saint Virgil Van Dyck stood firm as the Reds held on for a rare clean sheet.

"The first [goal] was brilliant," sais Klopp. "That early goal, and then the kind of goal they both were too was perfect. The first was a counter on the break, and I don't think you can play much better than Mo and Roberto did for the second.

"If you want to find a few issues in the game, we could have closed it earlier, but we didn't so we had to defend but we did that well."

Overall, it was an almost flawless performance according to the German.

"We scored two wonderful goals, and could have scored more in the second half, we had some big chances.

"Southampton did well, that's their style of play and that's how they want to sort their problems. We deserved the three points, got a clean sheet and no injuries - nearly perfect."