Jurgen Klopp believes that his Liverpool side look ‘really sharp’ ahead of this weekend’s Premier League opener against Fulham at Craven Cottage.
The Reds ran out as 3-1 winners against Manchester City in the Community Shield at the weekend and then a youthful side suffered a 3-0 defeat against French outfit RC Strasbourg at Anfield last night.
The German tactician admitted his frustration at the club’s current injury list but is hopeful that those players won’t spend too long on the sidelines.
“When you have a pre-season, I’m now long enough in the business that I think I can get a sense of where we are and how good we could be. But yesterday the game was a really good sign because we looked really ready, we looked really sharp and that’s important,” the former Borussia Dortmund boss told Liverpoolfc.com.
“Now we have a full week, and in the end I think we have two full weeks probably for the next two games to prepare. You have to use that as kind of a pre-season, that’s why we played today and now we have to see that we prepare well for Fulham because it’s a different game obviously. But the boys look good and so I’m happy with where we are.
“A little bit lesser injuries would be nice – we were a bit unlucky very early, before we really started training, to be honest, and that doesn’t help. But the boys will come back rather sooner than later and then we have a fuller squad.
“But in the moment, the boys who are available look really good and sharp.”
It is frustrating that Ibrahima Konate and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are currently nursing injuries with the season set to commence on Saturday, but we do have strength in the depth at centre half and in midfield so there’s no need to be overly concerned at the moment.
We certainly looked sharp against City at the weekend and if we perform like that regular during the season, not many sides will be able to takes points off us.
From Adrian in goal to Bobby Firmino up-top, the whole side were on the save wavelength right from the beginning and we played with real intensity.
Thiago Alcantara set the tone in midfield while Mo Salah caused havoc amongst the City backline all evening.
Fulham will be frightened by the prospect of facing our No. 11 and co but will also be excited by the chance to cause a huge upset on their return to the top-flight.
We have a few days remaining to continue the hard work at the AXA Training Centre before our trip to the capital.