Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp mentioned Wilfried Zaha twice as he described Crystal Palace’s “half-legal” blocking at Tuesday’s press conference.

Ahead of Wednesday’s match with Leicester, the Liverpool boss was asked to explain how his side had managed to concede three goals to Crystal Palace in their recent thrilling 4-3 Premier League win at Anfield.

Marshalled by Virgil Van Dijk, who trained yesterday, the Reds managed to concede three times to a counter-attacking Palace side, despite previously conceding just 10 goals all season.

Only Man City have scored more than once against Klopp’s men in the Premier League, but the German boss explained it was always a possibility they would concede against a Palace side including Zaha.

Klopp has previously heaped praise on Zaha and labelled him “world-class” in the aftermath of the game and he again picked the former Man Utd man out, when asked to analyse the Anfield victory.

Klopp said: “We can go through it, the first half was exactly like we expected. They were very organised and a deep defending side with an unbelievable counter-attacking threat, especially with Zaha who is an exceptional player.

“And it was exactly like that we had moments with chances, not the clearest of chances, but then they were 1-0 up.

“Then in the second half we had a good restart but the big thing for Crystal Palace was their set-pieces. Very smart. They made a half-legal block on Virgil (Van Dijk) and we were not in the right mindset after that because after that they did the same block again and we had little holes of concentration, which I don’t like but I have to accept them.

“We cannot put our finger deep on the reasons, because it did not happen before, but we have to accept we conceded three goals. The third goal was in the moment when everyone thought we had won the game. It was a very intense game with 10 players on the pitch and we scored with 10 and we came through it somehow.

“All the goals were for different reasons. We don’t want to concede three goals, but it’s always clear it can happen and Crystal Palace used their tools really well.

“Zaha is hard to defend, the set-pieces are there to defend and the third goal we switched off. I can understand why it happened.”