Jurgen Klopp has praised 18-year-old Stefan Bajcetic after he bagged his first senior goal in Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Aston Villa on Monday.

The Reds got off to the strong start they wanted on the first day of the Premier League after the World Cup. With the win, the gap between them and the top four teams was cut to five points.

Before halftime, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk gave the away team a strong lead.

But Klopp’s team had to stay calm in the second half after Villa’s Ollie Watkins scored and Bajcetic scored just seconds after coming off the bench.

“He’s cheeky as hell and is not worried about anything. He just plays football and he can do that exceptionally well,” said Klopp of the Spanish midfielder, who is the son of former Serbian international Srdan Bajcetic.

“He had a football-playing father so the genes are there but also the attitude, awareness and match intelligence. It’s a big pleasure to work with these boys.”

During the first part of the season, Liverpool didn’t play as well as they had in recent years, but they looked ready to beat Aston Villa and give Unai Emery his first league loss since taking over as manager.

Salah is one of Klopp’s most important players who did not go to Qatar. He scored his 15th goal of the season in just five minutes.

After Trent Alexander-through Arnold’s ball had opened up the Villa defense, Andy Roberson’s pass put the ball in the back of the net.

Emery’s team missed a lot of good chances to tie the game right away, and Liverpool hasn’t done much to fix their defensive problems so far this season.

Leon Bailey and Watkins both didn’t finish their plays well.

At the other end, Darwin Nunez was even more wasteful, even though his powerful runs behind the Villa defense caused chaos.

After Ezri Konsa made a mistake, the Uruguayan missed Robertson’s cross and then shot straight at Villa’s stand-in goalkeeper Robin Olsen when he only had to beat the Swede.

Van Dijk was not so forgiving when Salah passed the ball to him from a corner and the Dutch defender calmly put it in. This gave the visitors a two-goal lead.

“It was a top performance in a difficult game. I think we played exceptionally in the first half,” added Klopp.

But Villa didn’t want to give up, and the second half was very exciting.

Watkins put the ball in the net just three minutes after the game started again, but he was just offside when he did it.

Before the home team scored the goal that their start to the second half deserved, John McGinn missed his pass when he only had goalkeeper Alisson to beat.

Watkins made the most of one of his tougher chances by heading the ball back across the goal to cut Villa’s deficit in half.

Liverpool’s lack of depth compared to their top-four rivals was shown by the fact that Klopp had to use two teenagers off the bench, and 17-year-old Ben Doak made his first Premier League appearance.

But Bajcetic showed he was older than his years by finishing in a calm way after Nunez was turned away again by Olsen.