Jurgen Klopp has promised that Liverpool will be much-improved once the season proper begins having seen some mixed results during pre-season so far.
After winning comfortably against Tranmere Rovers and Bradford City, the Reds have lost three times and drawn once, with the performance against Napoli particularly poor.
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Part of the reason is that the players are training much harder than they would during the season, and so are heading into games with heavy legs, hence the lethargy.
Key men like Mo Salah, Alisson and Roberto Firmino are also set to return this week to add to the quality available at Klopp’s disposal.
Klopp was not happy with the performance against Napoli at Murrayfield, but has promised that the players will improve quickly ahead of the new campaign beginning.
Via Sky Sports, he said: “Missing six players is strange. You lose players during pre-season, we’re used to that happening from time to time, but this year they are not even starting from the beginning and coming a couple of days before or after we start the season.
“It’s not good but that’s how it is. We prepared everybody as good as possible. We have to fight at the start for the season 100 per cent, with all we have, and if opponents want to analyse us now they’ll think ‘easy job’, but we’ll be a different animal next week.”
The Reds play Manchester City next weekend at Wembley in the Community Shield which will be a big insight into how the two teams are shaping up ahead of the title race this season.
Before that, though, the Reds face Lyon on Wednesday night and have a training camp in Evian in France.