Klopp on Milan win, Origi potential and Ojo future

Liverpool eased past Milan in their second International Champions Cup match on Saturday night, with second-half goals from Divock Origi and Roberto Firmino giving them a thoroughly deserved win at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

The manager reflected on a job well done afterwards, while also talking about the ability and potential of Origi and Sheyi Ojo.

Read on for Klopp’s post-match thoughts.

On the short-term plans for Sheyi Ojo…

We have to see. He’s a wonderful player for sure and his future is 100 per cent at Liverpool. I don’t think we have to make a decision so early, we have time and we have to use the time. He has already had a few injuries, not the biggest but in the wrong place I would say. We have to be cool and train to make the boys as fit as possible. Ojo has been with us for five days or something, he came directly from the U19 tournament. We will see but his future is at Liverpool.

On the team’s performance…

All these players, if they stay fit and without injuries, can play a very good season. Everybody knows about the potential of Divock Origi. I understand that you ask about single players after a game like this. But especially tonight, it’s not a night for talking about single players. If you want to talk, it’s the way we played and the style of play and the dominance we had and the passing situations we had. In the first half we played brilliantly, we did the right thing – passed and passed and passed all the time until we were through. We created chances and didn’t score, we didn’t finish. But it will come, 100 per cent. Again we lost a little bit of patience and chose the wrong way because we had one or two long balls too many and forced the play when we lost the patience to pass again. So we created our problems, but it was not the biggest problem. There are a lot of things to do. The English players have had five or six days and are doing so well. Gini, first game, did really well. Ragnar Klavan, not long in the squad, did really well. All this stuff is good, a good sign and is important. I said before the game that I’m really happy about the opponent. Italian teams are always well organised and always make problems. You always struggle with different things in the game because it’s not easy to play them. We did really well and scored wonderful goals. We had one or two more chances and especially in the first half we had four or five big moments – not only Sadio but especially his chance. He did very well too. We were playing dominant football and then reacting on balls we lost, like we did in counter-pressing situations. That’s the only moment where it should be a little bit hectic. All the rest should be calm and really dominant. I’m pleased with the performance of the whole team.

On how ready the team is for the Premier League…

We have to work on all these things. This is time for fitness, that’s it. We have to use it. We play games and they are important, but they are not Premier League games. So we don’t have to think about it too much in the week and days before we play. It’s more intense in the Premier League season. But with the style of play we are in a good way. It was the second game we played. The first game we lost, I know, but even then we were dominant against Chelsea. We played football. That’s the thing you have to train because it’s not natural in a team that you play together. You can all play but to play together you have to train. I’m fine with the status quo but I know we have a long way to go. I don’t think about when we are finished, I only think about what we can do tomorrow. There will be another session; we have a few players who played longer than 45 minutes, all the rest can train normally and then Monday is the next game. We have a little bit of a problem at centre-half, they always have to play and we have to see how we can find a solution for this game. All the rest, we can have different options. Tonight Danny Ings didn’t play and I’ve already told him it will come, no problem, the next game he will be involved. They will all have their match time and that’s good.

On what he wants from taking part in the ICC tournament…

The teams are really strong, so that’s always a big challenge for us. But in the first case, we have to respect our training in this moment. Our club has given us an opportunity to, so we have a camp in the USA – it’s a long flight but we are here to show our best face to all of our supporters here in the USA. That’s nice to do, and it’s nice to see all the Liverpool supporters here in the USA. They don’t often have the possibility to watch their favourite team so it’s our job to go to there and that’s why we are here. Up to now, it’s been absolutely perfect and everyone has been very friendly and very interested in what we are doing. We’ve had an ‘open camp’ if you like, all the people at Stanford could watch our training if they wanted to – and a lot did – because we have no secrets, only football training. That’s the main reason we are here. The games we play are the full training, it’s not normal that you train yesterday twice, today before the game – yes we always train a little bit [before games] but today was longer – and we will train tomorrow morning with a real session. We need to use the time at this moment and California is a nice place to do this because the weather is not too bad!

On whether Liverpool’s performance was just as important as the result…

Nothing in football is more important than the victory. There is no guarantee the way you choose [to play] is 100 per cent the right way, but in the end you have to make the decision about the way because you have to minimise coincidences as much as possible. The best way to do this is to keep the ball and play your passing, move the other team around. It’s not new for us because we were already a dominant team last year, but you can always be better and that’s what we try. In the end, we don’t want to have only one chance a game. It’s not about passing for passing, it’s about passing and creating spaces we can use. That’s what I saw a lot of times tonight. I am fine at the moment, but not more. Tomorrow is another day and we have to carry on. We will do it, we love what we do, and so there is no reason to stop it and we will see. Tonight it was good – I actually think it was not bad against Chelsea but we lost because we had a little issue with a set piece, but we created chances. We didn’t finish often enough. We always have things to improve and that’s what we’ll try to do.