The Reds prepare for a tricky Europa League test against French side Toulouse in a group fixture. It will not be easy against the Ligue 1 side.
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Liverpool are in the middle of a good run of form in the Premier League and they will hope to maintain it in Europe. The Reds prepare for a tricky Europa League test against French side Toulouse in a group fixture. It will not be easy against the Ligue 1 side who are capable of giving a good game to any team on a given day. Hence, Jurgen Klopp’s boys must be at the top of their game to get the three points from this clash.
A variety of topics was being discussed during Klopp’s pre-match media duty. One of which was the form of Darwin Nunez, who provided the assist for the second goal against Everton in the Premier League. Speaking about him, Klopp, quoted by the club’s website, said, “He’s just in a really good moment. Darwin is in a really good moment. Yes, there was some time necessary to adapt to everything: new country, new language, new team, all these kinds of things. That’s long gone. He is in middle of the team, everybody is really happy with him, I’m very happy with him.”
He added: “We had to make a decision before the [Everton] game who of the two will start, is it Lucho [Diaz] or Darwin? Darwin had a little bit cramps at the end of the international game, so we thought, OK, maybe we start Lucho. Spoke to both, both took it. Lucho’s job was to create, prepare, do what you can do to cause as much trouble as possible, and Darwin comes on and kills the game off – that was the idea and that worked out really, really well.”
Klopp feels Liverpool are happy with Nunez and he is also happy at the moment. “But you could see it was really intense for him, even if it was 20-odd minutes. It was really intense, so it was the right decision to do how we did. It’s always tough for the boys to have these kind of travels before the games. But now he is fine for this game, I would say, and for the next game. That’s good. And yes, I think he is really happy in the moment, we are really happy with him. That’s what I can see at least on the pitch and on the training ground, and that’s really important. Really good moment for him,” he explained.
Then shifting the attention to the Europa League clash, Klopp spoke about how difficult it is going to be to face Toulouse on Thursday night. “Toulouse deserves all our respect. It’s a really interesting story, winning the French cup last year and coming 13th in the league – it’s a massive, massive thing obviously. This year a really young team, a really talented team, a football team. When you see them playing it’s really nice, they have a clear idea. But we have to see how they exactly show up here, we don’t know,” he stated.
He added: “Against Paris [Saint-Germain] or Lens they play slightly different; in all other games you could see that they really want to go for it. Got a point against PSG, which is obviously a massive one. So, we have to make sure that we are really ready. And then it’s about us, that’s very important, that we really create an atmosphere through the way we play. If we do that then as much as I’m pretty sure they are looking forward to playing at Anfield – the players of Toulouse, coaches, stuff like this – we have to make sure they cannot enjoy it, because that’s the plan. It’s a competition and we are not here for friendly games or whatever, we are really here to win football games and that’s what I hope we can show.”
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