Press conference'One of the best I ever saw' - Klopp on Diaz's first LFC start
“It was now a first game and was probably one of the best I ever saw from a new player, that’s true, because it looked completely natural,” said the boss of the Colombia forward’s performance against Leicester City on Thursday night.
Having debuted as a substitute versus Cardiff City the previous weekend, Diaz was brought into the starting XI and was a key figure in a 2-0 Premier League win over Leicester secured by Diogo Jota’s brace.
Klopp continued during his pre-match press conference on Friday: “But it’s only a first game and we have to see how he will adapt to all the different stuff, to the intensity and all these kind of things now in the Premier League. There’s no rush in it still.
“Last night was a very good opportunity to start him because of Sadio not being here yet and Mo coming back from an incredibly intense tournament. That was then a really good moment and yeah, he showed up.”
Asked about the increased options he has in attacking areas at the moment, the manager added: “It’s good to have options with the quality the boys have. We have even more options now. How I said, it’s the first time they are all fit.
“Taki is obviously in a good moment. Div, when he trains it looks always like: why is he not playing? Ox played up front, a really good part. So we have now options, but that’s what we need.
“I said last night and said it to be boys already, we had times when we have this chat group where we share all information around the team and in this chat group the players who are not available or not in the squad or whatever, before the game they always send a message, ‘Good luck boys’. We had times there were 13, 14 players texting, it means they were not available for us. We have now a different situation.
“But I said it before, it’s not so important who is playing. It’s important who is playing, but it’s much more important how we play. And especially in the second half last night, I thought we did really well, kept the pressure high on Leicester and gave them a real job to do and won absolutely deserved, could have scored more goals against a good Leicester side. Just because of us in the second half, we were then really like it should have been.”