Jurgen Klopp has reacted to Kostas Tsimikas’ first game for Liverpool in a post-match interview, offering his thoughts on the Greek’s unofficial debut for the Premier League champions.
The left-back was brought on for Andy Robertson in the second-half and was mostly solid, showing off neat defensive work and measured passing.
The boss was impressed by Tsimikas, but explained that it’ll take time for him to gel with the team properly. “He’s a pretty quick player, obviously, and pretty confident,” Klopp told LFC TV.
“But he’s a really good player, and he did well. Of course, the next challenge for him is to get used to all our defending things.
MORE: (Video) Tsimikas’ highlights from Stuttgart show LFC have another top-class left-back
“It will take time, no doubt. But when he has the ball it looks not so bad.”
Tsimikas replaced Andy Robertson for the second-half against Stuttgart and didn’t look out of place, exchanging passes with James Milner and Takumi Minamino on the left side.
You can’t read too much into 45 minutes of football, especially during a pre-season friendly, but it’s all positives for the Greece international so far.
Liverpool are set to take on Red Bull Salzburg in two days’ time, which should provide an even larger sample size of which to evaluate Tsimikas.
Players rarely hit the ground running at Anfield, but Fabinho and Naby Keita are proof that Klopp is more than willing to allow embedding periods.