Jurgen Klopp has defended his decision to make six changes to his side after Liverpool drew with Everton 1-1 in the Merseyside derby on Sunday.

The German shockingly rested star players Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino following their midweek trouncing of Spartak Moscow in the Champions league.

But despite the lack of a final product on Sunday, Klopp believes he was right to start his attacking weapons on the bench.

"I thought before the game, yes. Still yes, even when the result doesn't show it. We did it in the last six or seven weeks," Klopp said.

"We do it like this. I've said it here, I've said it to the boys already, we can change as much as we want when we win the games, but when we don't win the games I take the blame. I have no problem with that.

"The boys who came in were fresh and did a brilliant job; they played, they worked hard. We worked hard, it was a derby, we accepted it, we took it as a derby, it's a fight. You need to be ready for each challenge – and we were ready for each challenge.

"We tried everything. We could have scored, we had clear chances, half-chances – we had everything you need but we didn't use it, that's how it is and we know that. It was always clear a day like this could happen – we wanted to win 1-0 and we didn't."