Jayden Danns scored twice as Liverpool reached the quarter-finals (Picture: Getty)
Jayden Danns was in dreamland after his FA Cup heroics on Wednesday night as Liverpool’s youngsters shined again in a FA Cup win over Southampton.
Jurgen Klopp’s side, who lifted the Carabao Cup trophy on Sunday, produced a 3-0 win over their Championship opponents to book their place in the last eight.
Lewis Koumas put the Reds ahead at Anfield while fellow 18-year-old Danns scored twice in the second half on a perfect night at Anfield.
‘I couldn’t be happier,’ Danns told the BBC. ‘Today is the best day of my life. I’ve watched Liverpool since I was a young boy and to score at the Kop End is more than a dream. I couldn’t be happier.
‘In the Carabao Cup final I had a couple of opportunities to score so I came into today thinking, ‘bury the next one’ – I couldn’t describe [what it feels like to celebrate in front of the Kop].
‘It is a dream come true. The first thing I thought was to slide on my knees. It was an unbelievable experience.
‘The senior players are so helpful to us and all us young players, half of them are my team-mates at 18s, and it is a mad experience and doing it together is crazy.’
Lewis Koumas opened the scoring for Liverpool on Wednesday (Picture: Getty)
Speaking to ITV, Danns added: ‘I’ve supported the club since birth. To come on and score at the Kop End is amazing, it doesn’t feel true. It feels like I’m in a film!’
Klopp, meanwhile, was equally delighted with the victory and said: ‘It was a special week for all of us.
‘I do the job for a little while and you don’t have weeks like that too often. This was a tough game in a horribly difficult situation for us.
‘We have to accept it and see who we can line-up. Today the solution was Joe Gomez playing six for the first time in his life.
‘We were all over the place in the first 15 minutes, the pressing was horrendous. We had problems and Southampton used that. Caoimhin [Kelleher] saved us a lot with top saves.
‘After 15 minutes the high press got a lot better, the midfield press we tried to sort at half-time.
‘Football is not easy and if you’ve got momentum you’ve got to keep it. We got it back and scored two wonderful goals in the second half.
‘Danns you could see that second goal coming, he has that nose. We saw it in the final. He had that luck and he was there to score that goal. It was a wonderful game to watch.’
Speaking to ITV, Klopp added: ‘It was an incredible game. Southampton are a top side, we all saw that. Our midfield press in the first half was not the right timing.
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‘They tried to do what we told them but it was hard to show them. They had big chances and we had to run a lot and we needed Caoimhin [Kelleher] to save us.
‘We scored a wonderful goal, we tried everything before that. It was so intense and they ran themselves into the ground, we needed to find a way and we did that. The second half was much better.
‘Lewis [Koumas] is a fantastic finisher but they’ve got to learn and improve. Dannsy [Jayden Danns] is quite a good finisher, the first goal was exceptional, but the goals are no different to the youth level.
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‘The second goal is just his nose, we saw that in the final, he was just a little bit unlucky. The whole end was a bit special again. We don’t want to make it all about us.
‘The whole situation is horribly difficult. Any positive mood around the changing room and training room, we accept we’re in a difficult moment and try and find solutions.
‘It’s great to be in the quarter-finals and we don’t take these things for granted. We deserved to go through, it was a top, top performance.’