Jürgen Klopp met with the media for a short presser after Liverpool defeated Darmstadt 98 3-1 at Deepdale Stadium, the home of Preston North End. In a session that lasted just over 3 minutes, the boss discussed his overall impressions of the match, Alexis Mac Allister's role with the club while sharing his thoughts on the preseason as the squad makes preparations for Chelsea.
Klopp was happy with the way the Reds dominated play, scoring three goals, but since Liverpool had 27 shots for the match, he thought the club could have put away a few more chances.
“We did a lot of good stuff, obviously, could have scored many more goals,” he said. “We conceded again one (goal) which we shouldn't concede, but it's an obvious mistake which we spoke already about. But that's how it is with mistakes, if you do it once, you talk about it, you work on it [but] that doesn't mean you sort it immediately. Besides that, we scored two goals after set-pieces, which is important. We could have scored one from a high-press situation, which is good as well and besides that we played a lot of good stuff without finishing the situations off.”
Klopp has a lot of decisions to make concerning the squad before the Premier League opener at Chelsea on August 13th. One of the biggest is who will play the number 6 role and Mac Allister is certainly a candidate for the job.
“He's a top-class player; on the ball [and] without the ball,” Klopp said of Mac Allister. “We had our moments where we were a bit too open, that's clear, but we are not used to it. That's why I said we had to work on it. We will do that. We have to try it and test a couple of different things. Yes, in a compact formation, Alexis can play there, definitely. If he's there alone, should he play there? No. But now he showed just how good a footballer he is and how good he understands the game because he played here now [for] the first time for us at least and he did really well.”
Liverpool had a pretty successful preseason. Not only did they go 3-1-1 in five games, they scored 18 goals and avoided major injuries. For Klopp, however, the preseason is never really over.
“There is some football stuff we have to do and maybe have to sort, definitely. But that's normal,” he said “The pre-season never ends after the first Premier League game. It always goes at least until the first international break. After that we should be then in a different position, that's clear. We have to use these full weeks without international football [which is] what we will do. We could, especially in Germany, train a lot on the physical part and on the tactical stuff and that's really helpful.”
Klopp got right to the point in this press conference. He said what all the supporters probably thinking: That Liverpool should have scored more than three goals after having 27 chances. I also find it interesting that he says his team stays in pre-season mode after the EPL season starts. I understand what he means. That Liverpool will still have some kinks to work out. I have just never heard it phrased that way before.
