Liverpool FC News: Reds break Man City's Premier League possession record

Liverpool eventually ran out 3-1 winners against Sheffield United on Thursday night to reclaim top spot in the Premier League with eight games to go.

While the Reds were expected to take three points against the league's bottom side, they were made to work for it under the lights at Anfield.

Darwin Nunez's ridiculous opener was cancelled out after the break by Conor Bradley's unfortunate own goal, leading to a nervy 18 minutes before Alexis Mac Allister thunderstrike restored the lead. Cody Gakpo's late header then ensured victory for the hosts.

Though the Reds faced an unexpected second-half scare when the visitors equalised, no one can say Jurgen Klopp's side weren't dominant.

As reported by data specialists Opta, Liverpool boasted a remarkable 83.1% possession against Sheffield United on Thursday — the most in a Premier League match on record.

The previous record had been held by Manchester City from their win over Swansea back in April 2018 (83%).

The Reds achieved the feat with a massive 708 accurate passes out of 779 attempted, with captain Virgil van Dijk boasting the best percentage in the Liverpool team (98%).

Despite the dominance in possession, Klopp admitted after the match that the team's approach was 'not the right one' as his side struggled to carve out chances to finish off the game earlier.

READ MORE: Liverpool 3-1 Sheffield United - Player Ratings

He told reporters: "Obviously we controlled the game but there are different ways to control a football game and the way we controlled it today was not the right one with not enough creating.

"I don't expect now that we have chance after chance after chance because they didn't even have counter-attacks if I'm right. If I would have asked the boys for the counter-press, it was not necessary because we won the ball back anyway, so it's like you don't even have these kind of moments. What you have to do, we saw that after 60 minutes. You have to accelerate, you have to speed up, you have to overlap, underlap – and that's what we did all of a sudden.

"The example, Robbo [Andy Robertson] going down the line constantly, which was really helpful. That's the problem, the game was a difficult one to get rhythm but we should have had a better rhythm than we had. That's what we got after 60 or whatever. OK, we needed then Macca's wondergoal obviously to turn it properly around, but the third goal was exactly like it should have been before already, these kind of moments – Robbo full speed, wonderful cross, sensational header and then we won the game.

"In the end, all good. I don't know when we face next time a similar challenge, probably all the other games are now different, especially the next one."