Jürgen Klopp assesses Liverpool's opening pre-season friendlies
Jürgen Klopp declared himself satisfied after Liverpool began their programme of pre-season friendlies by drawing 1-1 with Wacker Innsbruck and Stuttgart.
The Reds played two games each lasting 30 minutes back-to-back in Austria on Tuesday evening, with Divock Origi – from the penalty spot – and Sadio Mane getting the goals.
Post-match, Klopp spoke to Liverpoolfc.com. Read on for a full transcript...
On his assessment of the two matches…
It was a workout and it was good. Physically it was all that we wanted to see, we had to do it and it was an important test for that. From a football point of view, obviously a lot of space for improvement; I saw a lot of wild pressing. We wanted a wild press, we had a little competition between the two teams to see who wins the ball back more and how many counter-presses we have. We’ll have to think about the prize that the team will win! First game was obviously a very young team, Innsbruck did well and were obviously in a better moment than we are because they start next week with the league and we started last week with pre-season, so it’s different. But the kids did well in all the situations, they lost a little bit of organisation here and there, that’s how it is. The second game was a tough test, Stuttgart are a really good team. We started really well and then conceded a goal. Then we came more and more in the game again and scored a really nice goal. I’m really happy about it, it’s all good. I saw what I expected to see, actually – it would be strange if I was standing here and saying, ‘My god, I didn’t know we can play this kind of football’ but I am fine with it and now we keep working.
- Watch Liverpool's pre-season fixtures in Austria live and exclusive on LFCTV GO – plus match highlights, training access, interviews and all the latest news. Get the first month FREE with code 2122GOFREE. Find out more at www.liverpoolfc.com/watch. T&Cs apply.
On players operating in new positions in the games…
I don’t think Harvey had ever played that position for us, but looked good. Ox you could see in the first few minutes immediately that it is an option, definitely. We will see how that goes on. Ibou did really well and that’s what we expected, he looks really good in training. First game with all the young boys, they have really showed up in training but it is different then when you play a first team with all the kids together in the team. It is tough, but no problem – life is tough and we have to give them the opportunity to get tested in these kind of games. We do that and now we carry on.
On whether Virgil van Dijk or Joe Gomez could figure on Friday against Mainz…
It would be a surprise, to me as well. They have looked really good in training and yesterday was the first day where they did very complex things, usually it is either offensive or defensive and stuff like this. We have to get there, step by step, but I don’t expect them for Friday.