Matip warns Liverpool not to concentrate on Manchester City-Aston Villa Premier League season finale

After scoring the winning goal for Liverpool against Southampton on Tuesday, Joel Matip has warned that they cannot afford to have their concentration on Manchester City during the Premier League season’s final day.

With Matip’s goal in the 2-1 win, the Reds moved within a point of league leaders City, and the centre-back wants his teammates to focus on their game against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

"It will be hard enough and if our head is somewhere else, that would make it even more of a tough challenge," the retired Cameroon defender told the club’s website.

"We can only look at our game. It will be tough enough to play against Wolves, and our full concentration is on Wolves – that’s the only thing we can change and that’s what we are doing.

"We will just try our best. We just can play our games and that’s what we are concentrating on. We try to make it as exciting as possible."

As Liverpool will host Wolves, the Citizens will entertain Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium.

Meanwhile, Matip explained how he scored the goal that helped the FA Cup winners come from behind to claim the victory at St Mary’s Stadium.

"Just happy. I don’t know how it ended up as a goal, to be honest, but it doesn’t matter. We played well and deserved to win. Everybody was working quite hard," said Matip after the game.

"I think I touched it, but in the end, how it ended up there in the net I’m not sure – but I don’t care, to be honest."

After the hard-fought win, Matip ended on the winning side in all eight Premier League matches when he's found the net, while he's only lost in 10 of his 125 Premier League appearances (8%), the lowest ratio of any of the 1,081 players to appear at least 100 times in the competition's history.

The 30-year-old defender joined Takumi Minamino – who has scored in each of his last two Premier League starts for Liverpool - on the scoresheet as they downed the Saints, who had claimed an early first-half lead.