NewsJürgen Klopp on improvement ideas, Austria initiations, Darwin Nunez and more

The Reds arrived in Salzburg on Friday for a week-long stay ahead of next weekend’s FA Community Shield clash with Manchester City.

And Klopp is eager to maximise the opportunity this time away affords as he plots to surpass a remarkable 2021-22 in which his side won both domestic cup competitions, reached the Champions League final and finished one point behind City at the top of the Premier League.

“It was top… with obviously space for improvement,” the manager told Premier League Productions of last season.

“Last year we couldn’t have done a lot better. Results could have been slightly better but performances not much, so happy with a lot but saw a lot what we can improve and that is what we are working on in the moment.

“Not only because we want to improve, but we have to improve because other teams don’t sleep. Yeah, we have to be ready for massive fights every weekend and that’s what we try.”

Read a summary of the rest of the interview with the boss below.

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How are pre-season preparations going this year compared to last?

Good, but you cannot compare the two preparations. We had, again, a lot of players on international duty, they played long [seasons]. We had the longest season as a team as well with the Champions League [final]. Last year we had I think four-and-a-half weeks with all players together, which is, from my point of view if you ever want to change something in football, the minimum what we all should have, what each coach should get because you can then be really influential.

Now for us it is a normal pre-season. Since we arrived in Asia all players are back, some are already injured [and] that is of course not cool, but all players are back and we work together and it’s fine. The pre-season is where it should be. We know we played three games, lost the first and won the two others, we are physically not where we want to be but that’s normal as well. Tactically we work a lot and for the moment I am fine [but] we don’t have really time because next Saturday we play already Man City in the Community Shield and that will be a massive test.

How has Darwin Nunez fitted in and what is his potential at Liverpool?

He has fitted very well in. It’s a new club, everything is new. Liverpool is a big club, everything went pretty quick for Darwin in the last few years – his journey is an exciting one and he will make big steps with us, definitely. But it’s a hard pre-season. In the pre-season players should not play like they usually play because we train really hard, it would be kind of a bad sign that we are not working hard enough if players have the freshest legs ever in the training games. But in the same moment when you are a new player you get judged every day, everybody speaks about you. Everything is so hectic – I’m not sure if it is my age or whatever, it’s just too hectic for me. I always think, ‘Why are we judging people constantly that early?’ Not only footballers, in general. So, everything will be good. It will take time like it always takes time but it’s fine. I don’t think we know already the way it can go for him because it’s so fresh and he wants to really enjoy every day, but we have a lot of work to do and he has some work to do as well. So, all good.

Karaoke initiations for new players and quiz nights – are they on the agenda again this year and why are they so important to you?

Yeah, they are on the agenda. It’s not that we enjoy it too much but you have to go through these kind of things when you are new in the club! We have a couple of new staff members as well so it will be very funny. I don’t know exactly when it is planned for, to be 100 per cent honest, but we will find the moment when we definitely will do it and these nights are quite funny and quite embarrassing for the guys who have to do it. But that’s part of the deal: when you sign a contract in a new club then you have to do these things.

What effect has Mohamed Salah’s new contract had on the squad and Mo himself?

Well, you have to ask Mo that but he looks like he always looks: sharp, top fit, full of desire for success and working extremely hard, coming back extremely fit. Mo is like this. I’m not sure Mo needs a pre-season, he could start the season immediately. He needs it for the rhythm and all these kind of things but not from a physical point of view. He just has a talent in this department but he is working extremely hard as well. So, I know Mo is very, very happy that we found an agreement. We were his club before he signed a new contract, now we are definitely his club and that feels pretty good.

You took the fans on an incredible journey last season, what can they expect in 2022-23?

That we try to do it again, at least like we did last year and if it is possible then to do better. We will try, it will not not work or not happen because we didn’t try hard enough. We will give our absolute everything, that is what I can promise. But you just have to look around at what other teams are doing, they didn’t get weaker and we didn’t win the games we won six or 7-0, we won them 1-0, 2-1 or whatever was necessary [and] we did that that often that we ended up one point behind Manchester City. It will be a tough season, our people know that and I hope they are ready to enjoy the season again.

How convinced are you that this squad can do it all over again?

No, I don’t have to be convinced about anything. I know that it is possible, it’s not extremely likely but we realise now that it is possible with luck here and there. Especially in cup competitions you need luck to get through all the rounds, we scored late goals and all these kind of things. So we know that it is doable but not very likely that another team or we will do this again, but we will just play it game by game, starting with the Community Shield and then the Premier League, at some point the League Cup will start, Champions League will start… so yeah, it will be tough [and] it was very tough, but we enjoyed it as well. So it was not only tough, there were a lot of moments where we really thought, ‘Wow, it is a pure privilege’… we really enjoyed it but who knows what will be.