Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said that the players have put the Champions League final defeat behind them and are ready for the Premier League. The Reds reached their first Champions League final in more than a decade last season. However, they were defeated by Real Madrid 3-1 with goalkeeper Loris Karius making some major errors.
However, Klopp says that the Liverpool players have forgotten the bizarre outing at Kiev. He said, “It is no problem. There are bigger problems in life than losing a Champions League final, so we all have bigger problems than losing a Champions League final. We tried everything, it did not happen, so that is all. It is a long time ago and a waste of time having that in your mind. So no problem, we go again.”
Liverpool made some huge investments this summer. This included signing Brazilian custodian Alisson at a then-world record fee of £67 million. The former Roma goalie is all set to make his competitive Liverpool debut against West Ham today. Klopp said about Alisson, The good thing is from the first day he has been very stable and calm, but then again we already knew a few things about his personality when we signed him. And apart from catching balls, that helps massively. You need to have the right personality for that very difficult job. And obviously he has that.”
Mohamed Salah will once again be Liverpool’s main man after an impressive performance last season. The Egyptian forward scored 44 goals from 52 appearances and was named the Player of the Season. About Salah, Klopp said, “We are not bothering constantly about how he can play the same season. So why should I tell him? It is obvious that he has to do it again, you can see in each session that he is a fantastic professional.
I do not go to him every day and give him advice on how he scores 54 goals next season as actually I have no clue. We try to help him all the time in training, he is a great boy, but I do not talk to him every day about how he can score more than last season.”
Regarding Liverpool’s Premier League chances, Klopp was pretty grounded about his opinion. He said, “I do not know (if Liverpool can win the league). That depends only on how we play, perform and fight, not on what I say now. How we react in the games and finish them. We do not have to play much better in the games against City – if we perform like we did last year, that would already be good. The points we lost between us and City were obviously for different reasons and mostly because we did not win all the other games. That is the case and a fact.”
