LIVERPOOL -- Dejan Lovren relayed the importance of Liverpool keeping a clean sheet in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal with Manchester City and said the atmosphere in Anfield was the best he had seen.
Liverpool travel to the Etihad Stadium next week holding a 3-0 lead on aggregate following Wednesday night's convincing victory, with Mohamed Salah, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sadio Mane scoring the goals.
A solid defensive display from Liverpool led to City, who can win the Premier League on Saturday and are the division's top scorers, failing to record a shot on target over the course of 90 minutes.
"It's a brilliant result," Lovren said. "In football you can never know. You relax and in one second it causes pressure.
"Against Man City, they have the quality to score when they want and they didn't. It was crucial. It was a massive clean sheet for us today, not to concede in the Champions League.
"It's not just about scoring the goals, it is also about what we do when we don't have the ball. We defended amazingly. This is what a good team does. We are concentrated from the first second until the end."
Lovren, who moved to Liverpool in summer 2014, added that the atmosphere generated by supporters against City was the best he has played in front of during his Anfield career.
The centre-half even put Wednesday's game ahead of the Borussia Dortmund Europa League tie in 2016 when he scored an injury-time winner to complete a dramatic comeback.
"I think [it was] the best atmosphere from the first time I came here," he said. "I saw from the first minute to the last minute they didn't sit down, I think, on their chairs. It was amazing. We couldn't hear ourselves always. It was a massive point to have them.
"I can only remember now how I felt after the goal [against Dortmund], but this is different. This is Champions League."
Liverpool's win over City is quickly followed up by Saturday's Merseyside derby at Goodison Park, with Klopp once again having expressed his frustration at the Premier League allowing to schedule the Everton game as an early kickoff.
Injuries are building up within the Liverpool squad ahead of the encounter with Everton as Salah, who has scored 38 goals in all competitions, became the latest player to pick up an injury.
"With injured players we don't have so many options," Lovren said. "We have still a young squad who are ready to get into the first XI. We need to now be smart in the next couple of days.
"We need to relax and keep our heads down, to work. We have a big game on Saturday, a derby. We need these three points there. It will be difficult definitely. If we play our game, I'm confident we can take something from there."