Jurgen Klopp has brilliantly explained in an interview with the official website how Liverpool will try to maintain intensity when football resumes – despite the fact they won’t have the luxury of the Anfield crowd to spur them on.
The boss has said the players are so fit they could run a ‘marathon,’ but that football fitness is very different and re-finding it will be the prime motivation at Melwood this week – with players allowed to return to training in small groups.
“When we start, it goes really again for everything. The competition will make the intensity. So it’s not about, ‘Oh, Liverpool have to win two games.’ By the way, we have to win two games when we start – it’s not ‘only two’, it’s two. It’s not less or more,” he began.
“We have to win them, it’s not that we want to win the last two or whatever and come through somehow. We want to play the best possible football, better than other teams fighting for the Champions League, fighting to stay in the league. You will see, that was the first matchday but now the intensity will go even up. And all the physical numbers of the games in Germany were incredibly high, so like 117 or 118km running, without anybody shouting at you that you have to run. Just because you want it, because you do it for your teammates. That’s exactly what we have to do as well. We play for this club, we play for each other, 100 per cent. We will run and fight for each other, 100 per cent.
“We have to do it, unfortunately, without the best boost in the world and the best kick in your ass in the right moment in the world, from the Anfield crowd. But that’s how it is. I never understood in life why you always want things you don’t have, you cannot have. In this moment we cannot have that, so let’s take the rest and make the absolute best of it.”
As usual, Klopp is spot on and has only increased our excitement for football’s return.
The Bundesliga has been a mighty success so far in the manner in which it’s come back – and the quality of the games has been decent – too.
It’s very sad that Anfield won’t be packed for a Jordan Henderson trophy lift, but what can we do? Nothing – except obey the rules and look forward to normality.
Nobody will forget this season and nobody will be able to take away no.19 when it arrives.
As Klopp says though, two wins are required first!
Read more: Who said this?! “The ‘wheeler dealer’ tag that gets trotted out about Harry is a load of nonsense. Harry understands people and he understands football and the biggest compliment I could give him is that he could manage Real Madrid, England or Dagenham and be successful in all three jobs.”