ReactionFabio Carvalho: Good to be back but the work continues

The attacker opened the scoring just a minute into Sunday’s Dubai Super Cup clash with Olympique Lyonnais, though the French side came back to win 3-1 at Al-Maktoum Stadium through goals from Alexandre Lacazette (two) and Bradley Barcola and triumph in the bonus penalty shootout.

The game came at the end of the Reds’ first of two weeks in the United Arab Emirates for a training camp before they return to competitive action by visiting Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on December 22.

Post-match, Carvalho spoke to Liverpoolfc.com about the encounter with Lyon and the ongoing preparations for the remainder of the campaign…

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On the usefulness of the clash with Lyon…

It was a good test for us, they’re a good team. We’ve been working hard this week but games are where you really test yourself. It was good to be out there again after a short break. It was a good test.

On his early goal showing the benefits of the team’s work on pressing…

One hundred per cent, that’s what we’ve been working on all week and obviously it paid off today. We could have done it more often and we just need to tidy up with little tweaks and together we can do it. Like it showed today in the first minute, it paid off and we’re going to keep working on that.

On the meetings and analysis work done during the first week of the training camp…

For me it has certainly helped because we have been looking at videos from last season and obviously it has helped. We want to get back to pressing how the team pressed last year, which was very useful in games and we created a lot of chances from it. We haven’t quite been at the level pressing-wise this year and it’s something we’ve been working on and will keep working on. Hopefully we’ll be back to our best.

On getting straight back into competitive action very soon…

Obviously the break helped to recuperate and recover but we’re straight back into it and that’s something we want to be – we don’t want to coast into it, we want to go straight back in. We have got important games coming up, the cup game and then the game on Boxing Day. We’re looking to work hard in training and hopefully we can get the wins in the next few games.

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