An Anfield return beckons for Liverpool on Monday night as Jurgen Klopp’s men prepare to welcome Crystal Palace in a bid to secure their first win of the season.
The Reds fought back twice to draw 2-2 with Fulham last weekend, and Jurgen Klopp faced the media ahead of Monday night’s clash.
On Harvey Elliot’s new contract…
Amidst all the injury disappointment in recent weeks, Harvey Elliot’s new contract has given Liverpool fans something to cheer about.
Jurgen Klopp expressed his delight in the youngster extending his Merseyside stay. The Liverpool boss also spoke whether he’s in contention to start against Crystal Palace.
Klopp: “Yeah, he is always. He’s a fantastic boy, a super player and came on and had a real impact [at Fulham last weekend]. He played a really good pre-season – very helpful – and yeah, of course.”
On Roberto Firmino’s role in the team…
Jurgen Klopp reiterated Roberto Firmino’s value to his squad and demonstrates that he won’t judge the forward on just one performance.
Klopp: “Very important. If you take now our last game against Fulham, we didn’t find Bobby properly. There were different reasons, we saw in the analysis a lot; we can speak about it but it was something that had nothing to do with us, to be honest, because the centre was very often blocked.
“Bobby is a fantastic player and had a good pre-season, not a perfect pre-season but a good pre-season and that’s all he needed, that he could have the amount of sessions he had and could train as often as he did. He will benefit from that definitely during the season and from there we go.”
On the performance versus Fulham…
The Liverpool Manager will be hoping for a more livelier start compared to what he saw at Craven Cottage last week.
Klopp: “With my English, I’m not sure if ‘attitude’ is the right thing but we had a slow start, I didn’t like the start at all. I saw then the attitude to fight back but that’s a different thing.
“It’s better you have a high intense, high concentrated, lively start in a football game than not. But it’s very often a game starts like this, that’s not a problem; first pass you turn it to the full-back, pass it backwards, next one gets blocked by the winger. That is always, ‘OK, come on, switch on now’ and that took too long in this game.”
Darwin and Salah: A new partnership?
Klopp is encouraged by the partnership forming between Mohammed Salah and Darwin Nunez, who both scored and assisted on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season.
Klopp: “It’s a cool partnership, definitely. It’s two players who are determined to score and be in the decisive areas – I mean behind the line, wherever the line is. It’s very helpful. Mo is in a really good moment and Darwin is settling in.
“I think Luis [Diaz] just missed the goal, if you want [at Fulham], really good moments, really good situations. [He had] two chances, one was post I think, or crossbar, and then got blocked in another situation.”