All eyes this pre-season were always going to be on our new signings but Jurgen Klopp didn’t want to speak about Darwin Nunez and Fabio Carvalho after our latest victory.
Speaking with the media after the Crystal Palace game, the 55-year-old was asked about the performance of our newest acquisitions and he said: ‘They were good, really good.
‘But I don’t think it makes too much sense to talk after a football game about individual players, to be honest, because I’m not sure exactly but I think 32 players round about we used tonight and I liked all of them, what they did, to be honest.
‘It looked really like proper football, our pressing was extremely obvious, which is very important for us. It’s still really early. I know we don’t have a long time, it’s only two weeks until we face Man City so we should not waste time, but we are only a week together now, with different circumstances – not in our training ground or somewhere in Europe where we are used to the circumstances.
‘No, we are here and we try to squeeze every minute out for training. Apart from Oxlade getting injured – muscle, hamstring, we will see how bad it is – the rest was absolutely top-class’.
It wasn’t a direct snub but another show from the boss that he doesn’t view any players as more important than others, as he was keen to talk about the performance as a whole.
Following the defeat to Manchester United, although we are all aware that pre-season results are meaningless, all supporters wanted a better result against Patrick Vieira’s side and that’s what we got.
It’s all about gaining fitness and sharpness for the squad and also about new players getting to know their new teammates and how the team plays as a whole.
Although there will be a lot of focus on the newer players for supporters, with our new Uruguayan gaining a lot of headlines so far, our manager is focussing on ensuring the collective are ready for our first Premier League game away to Fulham.