Having won three of their four matches in the new Premier League season, Liverpool will next take on Crystal Palace on the weekend.
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Liverpool will be eager to build on their positive start in the new Premier League season when they face Crystal Palace. Having won three of their four matches in the new Premier League season, Liverpool will next take on Palace in the weekend. The Reds will be brimming with confidence after registering a remarkable come-from-behind victory against AC Milan in their Champions League opener. Jurgen Klopp, in his pre-match press conference, was asked about what difference he sees in Palace under new manager Patrick Vieira. He said, “Massive. A proper football-playing side I have to say and he has obviously a clear idea how he wants to set it up, you can see that.”
“He brought in new players, used them. I always said it’s incredible how strong they are up-front with all the players they have: now [Odsonne] Edouard came in and scored twice, obviously had anyway quite a decent scoring record. [Jordan] Ayew, [Christian] Benteke, the boy from Mainz and [Wilfried] Zaha obviously. So that’s incredible quality and now in midfield, [Cheikhou] Kouyate back in his position, [Conor] Gallagher – I’m not sure you can still say he’s a talent when he plays for [England] U21s, but he’s a really, really good player, and then the third position [James] McArthur or whoever can play there. It’s a decent team with a real football-playing idea. So, it’s a change and they will do well I’m pretty sure – but we want to, and have to, do well as well so tomorrow hopefully we can do that.”
When asked about Salah’s contract situation, Jurgen Klopp replied, “Look, there is nothing really to say about it, especially not from me because I’m not involved. So no [update to report]. Obviously the only thing I am really interested in is how Mo looks, how sharp he is, how committed he is in the moment and that’s absolutely spot on, really good, and that’s everything. Nothing new to say about it.”
Jurgen Klopp had only good words to say about Sadio Mane despite his indifferent form of late. “Sadio looks really good, he looks really sharp. I know we talk about these things when a striker misses some chances, but that he has the amount of chances he has, the amount of finishes he has, that’s actually the important stuff. Sadio is in a good moment; a really good moment physically and mentally as well, so really confident and you can see that,” he elaborated.
“A player misses a chance and doesn’t look desperate or whatever, he has a smile on his face and he knows, ‘I could have done this or this better…’ and all these kind of things. It’s all good for the moment but Sadio is an exceptional player so he has to perform exceptional because this is the standard we expect from him and he usually delivers.”
When asked whether managing players’ fitness is becoming a bigger challenge, Jurgen Klopp said, “Yeah, [that’s] clear. We spoke a lot of the schedule and stuff like this but this [having three games a week] is normal for us, but the Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday thing is a tough one and the shortest one you can get in a normal week. You have to think about these kind of things, we did that [for the AC Milan game] and thank God we came through. I really thought the boys did really well and we will have to make changes again, that’s clear.”
